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BL 181 .B38 1877
Barry, Alfred, 1826-1910.
What is natural theology?
Shelf.
BOYLE LECTURES, 1876.
WHAT IS NATUEAL THEOLOGY?
AX ATTEMPT TO ESTIMATE
THE CUMULATIVE EVIDENCE
OF
MANY WITNESSES TO GOD,',
ALFRED 'BARRY, D.D.
PRINCIPAL OF KING'S COLLEGE, LONDON; CANON OF WORCESTER ; AND
HONORARY CIIAPLATN TO THE QUEEN.
LONDON:
CHRISTIAN EVIDENCE COMMITTEE OF THE
SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE
SOLD AT THE DEPOSITOEIES :
77, GEEAT QUEEN STREET, LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS ;
4, EOYAL EXCHANGE; 48, PICCADILLY;
AND BY ALL BOOESELLEES.
The Christian Evidence Committee of theS.P.C.K.,
while giving its general approval to this work of
the Christian Evidence Series, does not hold itself
responsible for every statement or every line of
argument.
The responsibility of each writer extends to
his own work only.
\
CONTENTS.
LECTURE I.
PAGE
THE UNIVERSAL BELIEF IN GOD ..•••!
LECTURE II.
THE METHOD OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD • • .41
LECTURE III.
THE MANIFOLD CORD OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. . .74)
LECTURE IV.
THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT : CAUSATION . . 104
LECTURE V.
THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT : THE EVIDENCE OF
141
DESIGN x ^ x
LECTURE YT.
THE THEOLOGY OF THE IMAGINATION .... 182
LECTURE YII.
THE THEOLOGY OF THE CONSCIENCE .... 217
IV CONTENTS.
-::tur3 viii.
PAGE
THE THEOLOGY CI THE AFFECTIONS ...
SUMMARY Or THZ AKGUKEN1
PKIHCE1
a. ijk aU \f jul u a a v -*■
PREFACE.
The Lectures here published were in substance
delivered as the Boyle Lectures of 1876. But,
on the one hand, they have been since con-
siderably enlarged, and in part rewritten for
publication, in order to obviate the limitations
imposed by homiletical delivery on the develop-
ment of various parts of the argument : and, on
the other, they contain what has long in prin-
ciple engaged my best thought and study.
In considering (as a Boyle Lecturer is bound
to do) the practical condition of the great con-
troversy between Christianity and the various
rival or antagonistic forms of thought, two con-
siderations have forced themselves on my mind,
which I have endeavoured to embody in the
following pages.
The first is that, while it is necessary to deal
with special attacks or difficulties, our great
strength lies in the exhibition in all its fulness
Vlll PREFACE.
been sufficiently applied in Natural Theology, it
is perhaps because the tremendous issues of the
inquiry after God make the mind impatient of
anything' but immediate intuition, in any direc-
tion in which it may chance first to move. Such
impatience although theoretically indefensible, is
yet sufficiently powerful in practice to need con-
stant warning that it demands the impossible.
The present series of Lectures attempts simply
a sketch of the cumulative force of the various
lines of Natural Theology. I trust hereafter to
dwell on the relation of Revelation to Natural
Theology as being " Supernatural not Preter-
natural ; " and to attempt a similar sketch of
the cumulative force of the positive Evidences
of Christianity as such.
Believing that the principles which I have
endeavoured to set forth are true — while I am
deeply sensible of the defects of their treatment
and of the responsibility attaching to all witness
for God — I trust that, by His blessing, they may
suggest thoughts, not wholly unfruitful for the
purpose for which these Lectures were instituted.
A. B.
King's College, London,
August, 1877.
LECTUEE I.
THE UNIVERSAL BELIEF IN GOD.
I.— THE CLAIM TOR THEOLOGY OF THE CHARACTER OF SCIENCE,
NECESSARY FOR THE ULTIMATE INQUIRIES OF HUMAN
THOUGHT.
II. THE VARIOUS BRANCHED OF THE ARGUMENT.
III.— THE UNIVERSAL BELIEF IN GOD, AS EXEMPLIFIED IN THE
RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD.
| (a) THE PROGRESS THROUGH POLYTHEISM AND DUALISM TO
MONOTHEISM. -
(b) THE SELF-CONDEMNATION OF BUDDHIST NIHILISM.
IV.— THE UNIVERSAL BELIEF IN GOD EXEMPLIFIED IN LAN-
GUAGE, AS AT ONCE INSTINCTIVE AND PERMANENT.
V.— THE METHOD OF THE GROWTH OF THIS BELIEF IN GOD,
SIMILAR TO THE GROWTH OF ALL LAWS OF THOUGHT,
INTELLECTUAL AND MORAL.
VI —THE TRUE SENSE OF THE PHRASE NATURAL RELIGION.
"At the mouth of two witnesses, or at the mouth of
three witnesses, shall the matter be established."— Deut.
xix. 15.
In all Science there are two kinds of work,
corresponding to the capacities of two different
kinds of workers. There is, on the one hand,
B
8 THE UNIVERSAL BELIEF IN GOD.
the work devoted absolutely and exhaustively to
one especial branch of science ; with a view, first
to a complete understanding of its theory, both
in principle and in detail, and a complete prac-
tical mastery of all its powers ; and next, if it
may be, to some original research, which shall
carry the banner of truth one stage onward in
the path of conquest. There is, on the other
hand, the work of combination and comparison
of the various lines of science, so far as they
have been already worked out, pausing thought-
fully to consider how they bear upon each other,
either for mutual correction or mutual illustration,
and what light they throw on that great problem
of Being, which, whatever be the complexity of
its parts, is in essence one. These two kinds
of work, though practically all but inseparable,
are yet perfectly distinct. The history of all
science proves, perhaps that there are epochs of
alternate predominance of each — epochs (as they
have been called) of expansion and of verifi-
cation — certainly that there are individuals
capable of doing good work in one, yet in-
capable of active service, possibly even of appre-
ciative judgment, in the other. Few, perhaps,
are the minds, the leaders of each generation, in
which the two powers are harmoniously com-
bined. In that combination they reflect some-
THE UNIVERSAL BELIEF IN GOD. 3
thing of the Divine Mind, which first made all
all things, each in its place and order, and then
beheld all that He had made, and contemplating
it as a whole, pronounced it to be "very
good."
I. Now it is certainly as a part of true science,
that a Boyle Lecturer is bound to regard
theology. The founder of these lectures was, as
we know, one of the original members in 1663
of the Royal Society of Literature and Science.
He foresaw and rejoiced in the future advance
of the science, both of nature and of man, in
many directions. He knew, perhaps, the in-
herent tendency in each branch of scientific
thought to usurp regions beyond its rightful
empire — "to bear no brother/' still more no
superior, " negr its throne/' He desired that
the old science of Theology — necessarily, if
existent at all, the queen of sciences — should
maintain its own proper ground, amidst all the
growing claims, and the changeful aspects, of
other forms of thought. Well he knew, as his
own life shows, 1 at once by the knowledge of its
1 In his will, referring to the Koyal Society, he " yvishes
them a happy success in their laudable attempts to dis-
cover the true nature of the works of God," and prays
" that they and all other searchers into physical truth may
cordially refer their attainments to the glory of the great
Author of Nature and to the comfort of mankind."— See
B 2
4 THE UNIVERSAL BELIEF IN GOD.
reality, and by the experience of its temporary
loss, that religion is more than theology, that
Christianity is not merely a science, but a life."
But still, as in his own works, so in the lecture-
ships which he founded, he maintained the per-
petual vitality of theological science. 3 What he
Birch's "Life of Eobert Boyle," prefixed to the quarto
edition of his works (London, 1772).
2 There is a remarkable passage quoted by Maurice in
Ins " First Boyle Lecture " from an autobiography of
Boyle, under the name of Philaretus, which describes how
on a visit to the Grande Chartreuse in his youth, " the
devil, taking advantage of that deep raving melancholy
befitting so sad a place, his humour, and the strange
stories and pictures of Bruno, the father of the Order,
suggested such strange and hideous thoughts, and such
distracting doubts of some of the fundamentals of Chris-
tianity . . • that nothing but the forbiddingness of self-de-
spatch hindered his acting it." The dark hour passed ; " at
last it pleased God, one day he had received the Sacra-
ment, to restore unto him the withdrawn sense of His
favour." But he adds he "derived from this anxiety the
advantage of groundedness in religion," from being forced
" to be seriously inquisitive of the very fundamentals of
Christianity."— See Birch's " Life," p. 23.
3 Among his works we find in vol. iv. pp. 1 — 66, a con-
sideration of "the Excellency of Theology as compared
with Natural Philosophy, as objects of Man's Study;" in
vol. v. pp. 158 — 255, a " Free Inquiry into the vulgarly-
received Notion of Nature " (as a substitute for our recog-
nition of God, or as an intervener between us and Him) ;
and in vol. v. pp. 508 — 550, "The Christian Virtuoso,
showing that by being addicted to Experimental Philo-
sophy a man is rather assisted than indisposed to be a good
THE UNIVERSAL BELIEF IX GOD. 5
called u Sermons/' have, by force of propriety,
assumed the name and character of Lectures, till
at times we almost doubt whether they have a
right still to claim their place in Church. He had
no idea of relegating Christianity to the realms
of feeling and practice. To his mind this would
be to do either too little or too much — too little,
if Christianity be false — too much, far too much,
if it be true.
Surely, simply as a philosopher, he was right.
Theology must aspire to the character of a
science, if our recognition of God is to have any
living power.
By the twofold light of inte^udconsciousness
and external observation, man discerns two
worlds around him, to both of which in different
degrees he belongs — the world material of things
to which he is linked in body — the world
spiritual of persons, in which he claims a place
in virtue of his mind. In the knowledge
of both he is not content, till crude in-
stinct and practical familiarity have risen into
science.
But yet he cannot possibly rest on the science,
however exact, of these two as separate. For he
Christian," with " a Discourse on the distinction which
represents certain things as above Season, but not con-
trary to Reason.' 1
THE UNIVERSAL BELIEF IN GOD.
knows that they are not separate, because prac-
tically they act and react on each other.
Neither can he refuse to recognise them as
distinct; for they resist all efforts, however
daring and ingenious, to make them actually
one, whether by materializing spirit or by
spiritualizing matter. Distinct they are, yet
not separate, neither producing, yet each
implying, the other. What can this mean ?
The conception of some power — call it what
you will, Nature, Fate, God — over both, creating,
ruling, uniting both, is an absolute necessity
of thought. Yet the moment you grasp it, you
enter upon the sphere of theology ; earliest, no
doubt, as modern philosophy declares, of human
conceptions, in the " first thoughts " of simple
intuition ; perhaps put aside, at least from exclu-
sive sway, by the " second thoughts " of meta-
physical idea and physical observation; but
inevitably recurring, both in theory and in fact,
in those "third thoughts" of mature reflection,
which, according to an almost invariable law of
knowledge, have to correct and enlarge by the
aid of the second thoughts the simple intuition
of the first.
Take, indeed, what path you will, all science
ends, as was long ago truly said, in mystery.
Who can fathom the mystery of the ultimate
THE UNIVERSAL BELIEF IN GOD.
nature and origin of matter ? 4 Who can lay
Lis finger with unerring certainty on the
essential characteristics and the genesis of
spirit ? Who, by searching, can so find out
God, as to reduce the infinite within the com-
prehension of the finite intelligence ? Yet in
every line of thought, this necessary limitation of
science does not prevent it from being, as far as
it goes, true in theory and fruitful in result.
It is again true, that as we ascend in the scale
of being — from the science of inorganic nature to
the science of organic life, the science of
humanity, the science of God — at each step we
find that science becomes in its results less
definite and measurable, and yet more subtle,
more profound, nearer the heart of our life.
At every step, more truly is human science
rightly described, as u the knowing " in part
" that which/' in respect of full comprehension,
"passeth knowledge.''' But yet not without a
sense of a law, " setting all things one against
another, " we observe that, as science thus becomes
4 See a remarkable passage on this subject in tbe Bishop
of Carlisle's " Oxford and Cambridge Sermons," Sermon II.
p. 47, and an interesting Appendix on some of the theories
on the subject. He says truly that "it is possible to
involve one elf in such a puzzle concerning the constitution
of matter, as almost to be driven to take refuge in the
eccentric supposition, that it does not exist at all."
8 THE UNIVERSAL BELIEF IN GOD.
more complex, additional powers of ascertaining
its first data are afforded to us. To the mere
observation, which alone can operate in the
physical sphere, is added, in the sphere of
humanity, the witness of internal consciousness ;
and the twofold witness of observation and con-
sciousness, striving upwards to God, is met, as
men have always believed, by some distinct reve-
lation of His very self, and (as we Christians
believe) by His manifestation in the Person of
the Lord Jesus Christ.
I follow, therefore, at once the principle on
which these Lectures were founded, and the
dictates of all sound reason, in claiming for
theology the right to be treated as a science, as
real as the science of nature and of man, al-
though doubtless more difficult and mysterious
than either ; and, moreover, as at once infinitely
more important than either to the true life of
the soul, and as imperiously demanded by the
necessity of harmonizing both. I hold such a
claim absolutely necessary to any permanent
and universal reality of religion itself. In an
individual life, religion may exist as simply an
inspiring sentiment and a practical power ; even
in the Church there may be times when inquiry
into first principles seems to sleej). But for the
race of man, and the whole life of humanity, a
THE UNIVERSAL BELIEF IN GOD.
power which shuns the test of reason, bidding
men escape from thought into the cloudland
of sentiment or the busy excitement of work,
necessarily abdicates all claim to permanent su-
premacy over man.
II. Treating, therefore, Theology as a science,
we may rightly discern in it that twofold division
of intellectual labour, at which I have already
glanced. It is possible, as many illustrious exam-
ples in this very Lectureship have shown, to take
up some one line of theology, and so to work it
out, as to make such work a landmark m the
history of thought. It is possible, on the other
hand, without attempting this original work,
to survey the various lines of evidential theo-
logy, as worked out already, in order to form
some conception of their relation to one another—
to see whether they really converge to one com-
mon point, and whether their testimonies have
those marks, at once of independence and coinci-
dence, which have made men acknowledge as an
universal rule of testimony, that " in the mouth of
two or three witnesses every word shall be estab-
lished." It is to this latter branch of the work,
that I propose, if God will, to devote the Lectures
of this year. If it be, as probably it is, the
humbler branch, yet perhaps it may be pleaded,
that it suggests considerations, apt to be some-
10 THE UNIVERSAL BELIEF IN GOD.
what neglected in days of excessive division of
intellectual labour. Certainly it may be urged,
that ; if its conclusion be in any way established,
it is one which comes home with remarkable
force to the minds of men in general ; and there-
fore may be not unsuitable to a time in which
speculation in theological subjects is diffused, in
popular form, through the mass of educated and
half-educated society.
Now, in the work proposed for these Lectures
by their founder/ there is a threefold division.
First, the truth of religion in general — that is
the recognition of a personal God, having com-
munion with man — is to be maintained against
Atheism, whether in veiled or unveiled forms.
Next, the need of some definite revelation, and
of a permanent creed based upon it, is to be
maintained against those whom the founder
calls " Theists/' but who are popularly and less
accurately known as Deists. Lastly, the essen-
tial and unique Truth of Christianity is to be
maintained against the claims of other esta-
blished religions of the world. Our opponents in
the last two branches of the argument, are our
5 The founder's will directs that " eight sermons should
1)0 preached every year for proving the Christian religion
againsl notorious infidels, to wit, Atheists, Theists, Pagans,
Jews, and Mahommedans."
THE UNIVERSAL BELIEF IN GOD. 11
allies in the first. It is to the first that I would
confine your attention now. I would ask you to
consider the convergent force of the various
lines of what is called Natural Theology, as bear-
ing upon the truth which Deists, Pagans, Jews,
Mohammedans hold in common with Christians
with various degrees of fervour and certainty.
The truth so sublimely embodied in the words,
iC Hear, O man, the Lord our God is One Lord,"
is no unfruitful faith. In proportion to the cer-
tainty with which it is held, will the inference
be drawn, " Thou shaft love the Lord thy God
with all thy heart, and all thy mind, with all
thy soul, and with all thy strength/'' Whatever
other gulfs of division may sunder men from
one another, there is none comparable to the
fundamental opposition between the life where
God is, and the life where He is not.
III. Now in regard to this fundamental prin-
ciple, I would ask you to note that the foundation
of these Lectures, while it directs the preacher to
aim at " proving the Christian religion/'' evidently
imposes on him the task, not of establishing its
truth de novo, but of defending it against " any
objections and difficulties which may be started."
In the true meaning of this direction, I
trace the recognition of a great fact, ol
which the reality, indeed, cannot be doubted,
12 THE UNIVERSAL BELIEF IN GOD.
but the whole force may be, and often is
overlooked — the fact that the belief in God is
universally (if I may so express it) in possession
of the ground of human thought. It is on the
Atheist or Pantheist, rather than upon the
Theist, that the onus j) rob an di rests. He must
account for the existence of this belief, which is
undoubtedly as instinctive and wide-spread, and
as apparently ineradicable, as the recognition of
the existence of right and wrong, or as the con-
sciousness of the freedom of human will. He
will, indeed, and on his own premisses he reason-
ably may, deny the conclusiveness of the old
axiom, that in man te nothing can be frustrate,"
— that to every belief there must correspond an
objective reality, and to every spiritual craving
a satisfaction. For that axiom implies in the
universe the design, the wisdom, the goodness
of a Personal God. 6 But (I repeat) he has
the judgment of mankind against him. Either
he must leave men at peace in possession
of this universal and natural belief, or he
must show cause for expelling it from the
throne in the realm of thought, which it
has occupied from the beginning. How comes
it there ? It certainly is no answer to refer
6 See Hooker, book i. chap. xi. 4. See Aristotle de
Coelo, u debs Kal i) (fivais ov$(v /xdriju itoiovgi.
THE UNIVERSAL BELIEF IN GOD. 13
its existence to an "inveterate tendency to
personification." For the question immediately
follows, "Whence came that inveterate tend-
ency ?" "An inveterate tendency " is another
name for a natural law of thought. If the
existence of such a law is not a prima facie
argument of a corresponding truth, then all
reasoning is at an end.
I am, indeed, not unaware that the fact itself
has been questioned. No man can deny the
existence of various forms of religion, covering
the whole area of humanity both in space and
time ; but, just as in morality it is argued that
the actual variations in the conceptions of what
is right and what is wrong, discredit the belief
in a power to recognise right and wrong in the
abstract, so it is maintained in religion that the
various forms of the idea of God are so many, so
startling, so mutually antagonistic, that they
may be held to destroy each other. I cannot
think that, in either morality or religion, this
view can possibly stand the light of investiga-
tion and serious thought.
Glance at the religions of the world, from
the lowest Fetichism to the highest and purest
Monotheism ; you find this one element common
to all — the belief in a personal power, a mind
and a will, governing the world of things and
14 THE UNIVERSAL BELIEF IN GOD.
of men. Even if what we call the powers of
nature be worshipped, the light, the heaven,
the earth — the Ato? aWrjp, UafjL/jirjrcop re Tf), —
they are invariably personified ; and be it ob-
served that this personification rapidly passes
through so many forms, that at last the concep-
tion of personality alone remains, and the
original connexion is lost. As man becomes
conscious of the inherent superiority of spirit in
himself to the grandest forces of material nature,
the recognition of a Divine personality increases
in its definiteness, although it may clothe itself
in attributes belonging to imperfect humanity. 7
7 This is surely obvious enough in the interesting re-
searches into " Compai-ative Mythology " made of late
years. See, for example, Max Miiller's " Chips from a Ger-
man Workshop," vol. ii. pp. 1 — 144 Thus the myths of
ancient Greece are obviously traced to an origin in the per-
sonification of Physical Powers and metaphorical descrip-
tions of Physical Phenomena. But in their development
there is an equally obvious admixture of a true human
element. The legend of the labours of Hercules may have
as its germ the mythical description of the passage of the
sun through the signs of the zodiac. But who, reading it
in the full beauty of its development, can fail to see that it
has become a spiritual history of the heroic soul, conquer-
ing nature, conquering self, and at last made perfect by
death ? To resolve all this, and other noble legends, into
'•sun-myths" seems almost an outrage on common sense.
We might as well suppose the Zeus of Homer to bo merely
the sky, because the epithet vfcpeKriyepera refers to an older
THE UNIVERSAL BELIEF IN GOD. 15
As he comes to see that the supreme ruling 1
power is something greater than physical force
and humanity, he speaks of it, it may be, under
vaguer and more mysterious names. But every-
where he personifies still. He may call it
Nature, Law, a " Something not ourselves," but
he speaks of it, he thinks of it, as an agent.
According to the suggestive satire of the old
Greek dramatist, he may dethrone Zeus, but
the " vortex " of unknown law and force which
he holds to be primeval, he turns, consciousty
or unconsciously, into a personal God. 3
All the various corruptions of the religious
idea fail utterly to destroy this fundamental
element, this conception of a Personal Ruler.
The faith, which the Epistle to the Hebrews
describes, seems as instinctive as reason, con-
science, affection themselves. 9 Man " endures
personification of the Heaven. Personification lias passed
into Personality.
8 Aristophanes, "The Clouds/' 1454, Aluos fiaviXevei
9 It is remarkable that the definitions of Faith given (in
Heb. xi. 1), iXTU^ofxevoov inrotTTaais, TrpayfxaTcov eheyxos ov
8\€7rofxevctiv (which perhaps in modern language is best
described as the " realization of the Invisible''), is in itself
applicable to the action of all the human faculties in the
discovery of Truth, whether speculative, moral, or aesthetic.
It is the peculiarly human attribute, essentially distin-
guishing us from the highest brute instinct, and lying on
the threshold of all true science. It is only in v. 27
16 THE UNIVERSAL BELIEF IN GOD.
as seeing-/'' though it may be through mists of
doubt and distorting mirage of superstition,
"Him who is invisible/'' The belief, moreover,
that the Supreme Will, thus universally recog-
nised, is glided by the wisdom and righteousness
and love, which are the highest attributes of a
spiritual nature, is equally universal, although it
may be liable to greater obscuration and perver-
sion. In the earlier and ruder stages of thought,
that Will may be supposed to make the produc-
tion of obedience and worship the one thing need-
ful, and accordingly to hold prayer and. sacrifice
higher than purity and truth, or to supersede
by personal favour towards individuals the uni-
versal dictates of righteousness. This idea be-
longs to the stage of thought, immature but
surely not unnatural, which, as in childhood,
finds its only virtue in the submission to
wisdom and power greater than our own.
Occasionally, again, men may, in their sense of
confusion and contradiction in the world,
actually attribute to the Supreme Power (or at
least to supernatural powers) the faults, the
blindness, the partiality, of which they are
conscious in themselves. But these defects
where the action of faith is described as upwv, not rb
&6pa.Toi>, but rbv aSparop, that the differentia of Faith in
its reference to a Personal object is introduced.
THE UNIVERSAL BELIEF IX GOD. 17
gradually clear up, especially as we advance to-
wards Monotheism. The supreme personal will,
in the creation of things, is recognised as acting
by design ; and in the government of men is
acknowledged as guided by moral principles.
When once progress is made in this direction,
there are no steps backward. The truer and
grander conception destroys all others. How-
ever imperfectly, the mind of man acknowledges
a God, not only of power, but of wisdom and
goodness.
But yet, if even the belief in a Personal will
be accepted, the passage to Monotheism — ex-
plicit or implicit — seems but a question of
time.
(a) Polytheism — the belief in many gods — is
but a brief halting-place in thought. Begotten
of the sense of multiplicity of power, it vanishes
before the discovery of a unity underlying it.
Examine what system of polytheism you will,
Greek, Latin, Teutonic, you always come to
one God, — it may be a Primal God, from whom
all others proceed ; it may be a Supreme God,
to whom all others bow. The "gods many
and lords many," so long as they are thought of
as divine, are only superhuman created beings.
The Christian, who believes that there are such
beings, and who sees no reason why the teach-
c
18 THE UNIVERSAL BELIEF IX GOD.
ing of the Old Testament,, which attributes to
them ministerial functions even in the physical
sphere,, should be mere metaphor/ will not fail
to see in the errors of a real polytheism a sub-
stratum of distorted truth. But in that curious
form of polytheism, to which the name of
" Henotheism " or "■ Cathenotheism " has been
given (itself probably a phase of transition
towards the commoner forms), in which each
deity is, in turn, represented as independent of
the rest, as the only deity present to the mind
of the worshipper at the time of his prayer
(as in the religion of the Vedic poetry of
India), 2 we see still more clearly that we have
1 I refer not to poetical passages, but to such passages
as Exod. xii. 23'; 2 Sam. xxiv. 16; 2 Kings xix. 35. Bound
the simple idea has been woven a strange fantastic fabric
of speculation and legend. But the idea itself is surely
not a priori improbable ; it is only the carrying out, in a
higher degree, and in ways to us inconceivable, what Ave
know of God's use of human agency in the realm of Nature ;
it is, at least, not inconsistent with those appearances of
conflict and isolated imperfections, overruled to a general
purpose, which Science believes itself to trace in the
physical sphere.
2 See Max Midler's " Chips from a German Workshop,"
vol. i. p. 27. In his Lecture on the Vedas the author
shows that "Agui" (the fire), "Indra" (the day), " Va-
runa" (the .sky), are alternately exalted as the Supreme
Deity. " All the rest disappear for the moment . . . and
He only stands in full light before the eyes of the wor-
shipper." lie adds, "The consciousness that all the
THE UNIVERSAL BELIEF IX GOD. 19
but ttoWwv ovofiarcov /J<op(f)r) fzia (" One Person
many-named"). There is but one Godhead. It
only manifests each of its attributes successively
under the name of a new god.
There may be a longer halt in Dualism in its
various forms, that is, in the conception of two
powers — it maybe of spirit and matter — it maybe
(in a moral sense) of good and evil — making this
world their battle-field, which springs out of the
painful consciousness of the mystery of evil in the
world. But examine again more closely, and we
shall find not only that the God of Light is the
true God, to whom the god of darkness is already
inferior, and by whom lie is destined to be over-
come ; but also that behind these two rival deities
there rises in dim and shadowy majesty the vision
of a yet older Being from whom both spring. 3
deities are but different names of one and the same God-
head breaks forth here and there in the Yedas." See also
the same author's "Lectures on the Science of Eeligion,"
Lect. ii. p. 141.
3 See Hardwick's " Christ and other Masters," part iv.
chap. iii. "Faint glimmerings of one .only God — inert,
indeed, if not impersonal, but still the primal cause of all
things— are discernible here and there in the remains of
Medo-Persian heathenism ; and certainly such a dogma . . .
is often traceable in the literature of the later Parsees."
" The reign of the good principle, though subsequent in
time, was represented as far mightier and more lasting
than the reign of evil. Ahriman, the child of doubt, shall
be hereafter superseded." In other words, the ancient
20 THE UNIVERSAL BELIEF IN GOD.
This solution of the mystery of the universe is
therefore merely temporary and tentative. If it
has recently been offered us, as a theory of modern
thought, it is simply in despair of any successful
search after a true and ultimate solution. 4
Both these imperfect forms of thought give,
way. Monotheism prevails by tire principle of
the " survival of the fittest/' First (as I be-
lieve), and original in an instinctive form, it
emerges again full-grown, after the trial and
failure of all these superstitions, which stop
half-way between earth and heaven. At this
moment, avowedly in Christianity, Judaism, and
the Mohammedanism, which is but a wild offshoot
from them, it prevails over full half the world,
and over all the leading races of mankind;
covertly it underlies the systems in which the
worship of many gods still seems to prevail.
Persian could discern beneath the manifold contradictions
of the actual world an aboriginal unity, could hear amid
them all the promise of some blessed restoration.
4 I allude, of course, to the speculations of Mr. Stuart
Mill. In his "Autobiography" he mentions the common
Dualistic hypothesis, as having commended itself to his
father, but apparently also as meeting some sympathy from
himself. In his " Essays on Theism " he inclines to the
softened Dualism (known in the ancient Gnostic theories)
of a supposed Creator (a "Demiurgus" in the old phraseo-
logy) limited in power by some external conditions, " laws "
of matter or being.
THE UNIVERSAL BELIEF IN GOD. 21
(b) But one strange exception to this universal
human belief presents itself in the Buddhism
which has been called ' c the Religion of Despair/'
which (to quote the words of a chief authority
on the subject) 5 "has no god; has not even the
confused and vague notion of an universal Spirit
in which the human soul may be absorbed. Nor
does it admit Nature in the proper sense of the
word. It cannot unite the human soul, which
it does not even mention, with a God whom it
ignores, nor with a Nature which it knows no
better." Nothing certainly can be more com-
pletely negative than the Buddhist theory. There
is hardly a point in modern Nihilism or Agnos-
ticism, which is not anticipated in its dreary
denial of the Being of God and of the true per-
sonality of man, in its recognition of continued
flux and decay as the law of all being, of sorrow
as the law of all conscious existence, and in
its prospect of annihilation as the one supreme
happiness of man. It is this utterly negative
character, which prevents it from being a religion
capable of uniting itself with mental activity,
with nobleness of enterprise, with progress of
humanity. It broods like a cloud over the stag-
nant and unprogressive civilization of Central
5 Barthelemy St. Hilaire, quoted by Max Miiller, " Chips
from a German Workshop," vol. i.
22 THE UNIVERSAL BELIEF IN GOD.
Asia ; in its own special home in Ceylon it awaits
with folded hands the foreseen triumph of Chris-
tianity ; it is the only religion which foretells its
own absolute extinction in the hereafter. 6
But, as a practical religion, it is not a little
instructive to observe how piteously it struggles
to escape from the dreary prison-house of nega-
tions into some forms of positive belief. I will
not speak of the significant fact, that, side by
side with the Buddhist temples, ignored and yet
tolerated by their priests, there are shrines in
which lower deities are worshipped, as at least
having some real power over human life, with a
half-hesitating worship." But what shall we say
6 The religion of Buddha (so he himself prophesied) is to
vanish utterly in itself and in its effects through five stages
of declension in 5000 years. See Spence Hardy's " Eastern
Monachism," chap. xxv. He adds, "Not long ago the
high priest of the Buddhists in Ceylon wrote to the monarch
of Siam . . . that, unless he came forward liberally to sup-
port the cause of their common religion, it would soon be
banished from the island by the efforts of Europeans to
impress their own systems on the minds of the people."
St. Hilaire says, " We are far from predicting for the
Buddhism of Ceylon a speedy fall, or even a rapid decay :
it is, however, certain that Christianity makes perpetually
considerable conquests. The Buddhist priesthood does
not seem to prepare for a regenerating struggle, nor to
rekindle its zeal in the face of a formidable danger." — " Le
Bouddha et sa Religion," part iii. chap. ii.
"* See Spence Hardy's " Manual of Buddhism," chap. ii.
sect. 3.
THE UNIVERSAL BELIEF IN GOD. 23
of the still more striking fact, that Buddha him-
self — as the incarnation of wisdom and righteous-
ness and love in a Son of Man, on whom are accu-
mulated attributes all but Divine — is practically
made a god by the thousands who crowd his
temples, and in the presence of his gigantic
image pour out to "his memory" the homage
of their offerings ? " He who had left no place
in the whole universe for a Divine Being was
deified himself by the multitudes, who wanted a
person whom they could worship, a king whom
they might invoke, a friend before whom they
could pour out their griefs." 8 How singularly
instructive it is, that, where no prayer may rise
to God, the people prostrate themselves or bow
before the image of Buddha, and declare that
"they take refuge in Buddha, in the Law or "Word,
and in the Priesthood" — a refuge from "the
fear of successive existences, from terrors of mind,
from pains of body, and from the misery of the
four hells ! " How painfully significant of the
reaction from atheism into superstition is the
relic-worship of the tooth of Buddha/ the remains
8 Max Muller's "Chips from a German Workshop,"
vol. i. p. 254.
9 On all this subject see Spence Hardy's " Eastern
Monachism," chap. xix. There is a curious description of
the Festival of the exhibition of the Tooth of Buddha in the
Appendix to St. Hilaire's " Le Bouddha et sa Religion."
24 THE UNIVERSAL BELIEF IN GOD.
of his body from the pyre, the very things that
he used, and the impressions of his foot !
Nor is this wonderful; for in Buddha they see
the very impersonation of that singularly lofty
though ascetic morality, and that " enlighten-
ment," penetrating into the secrets of the uni-
verse, which alone they leave existent amidst
the wreck of all other beliefs. Strange, yet in-
structive, is the inconsistency in which they hold
him to be non-existent, and yet put their trust
in him. And even as to the Nirwana itself —
whether the extinction which it expresses be the
extinction of desire, or the extinction of con-
scious life — it would seem that, " except to a few
hardened philosophers or ecstatic dreamers/'' it
really wears the form of a half- seen paradise, all
the sweeter because of the infinite gloom of their
conception of this life. In it men hope still to
be—
" From the burden of the flesh, from care and toil released,
Where the wicked cease from troubling, the weary are at
rest."
Even here, therefore, in the very home of what
seems a formal atheism, we have the same wit-
ness of the soul of man to a Personal Power —
something different from either a mere law and
an universal all-pervading Spirit. Although with
stammering lips and faltering tongue, we call
THE UNIVERSAL BELIEF IN GOD. 25
even Buddhism to join the great cloud of wit-
nesses by whose direct testimony the belief in
God is established. 1
IV. Yet I cannot but add to this direct witness
another form of universal testimony, striking
from its very indirectness. I mean the testi-
mony of human language. Take whatever lan-
guage you will — provided that it has emerged
from a mere rudimentary barbarism. Try to
describe in it the system of the universe, and to
refer to the Power, whatever it is, which is
Primeval and Supreme, under which things
exist, and men act and think. You will find it
impossible to go through a dozen sentences with-
out using terms which imply a personal power,
ruling by mind, with purpose, and deliberate
will. 2 When men, speaking of physical things,
dwell on the powers, the laws, the processes of
nature — whether in the most rigid scientific
1 See Note at the end of the Lecture.
2 The Duke of Argyll, in a Lecture on " Anthropomor-
phism in Theology," says with perfect truth, " There is the
phraseology of those who, without any thought either of
theological dogma or philosophical speculation, are, above
all things, observers, and who describe the facts they
see in whatever language appears most fully and most
adequately to describe them. The language of such men
is what Mr. Darwin's language almost always is — eminently
teleological and anthropomorphic." — "Problems of Faith,"
p. 41 (Hodder and Stoughton, 1875).
26 THE UNIVERSAL BELIEF IN GOD.
terms, or in the rhapsodical fervour which sup-
plies the place of religious enthusiasm — they must
use phrases again and again, which either mean
nothing at all, or mean in nature a God, veiled,
imperfect, perhaps capricious, but a person still.
When, especially in relation to the higher world
of persons, they talk of the power of " Law/'
how remarkable it is that this term of law — un-
happily more ambiguously and vaguely used
than any other — they have been forced to borrow
from the political sphere, in which it means the
declaration of a personal will, conceived in real
thought, backed by a real efficient force. But
for the personal associations which cling to it, it
could never satisfy men for a moment, as an
account either of the origin or the reason of
things. 3 These facts, as facts, must be familiar
to every one of us. They belong not to one
age, or one language, but to all. They are the
expression of that " Vox Populi," which is, after
all, the ultimate appeal in the simple decision of
3 A "law," in the sense in which the term is used in
physics, is simply a formal statement of a regularly recur-
ring fact or series of facts. Hence it describes modes of
action, and refers actions to particular classes, but of the
cause of action it tolls nothing. Yet from the associations
clinging to the word, the statement that physical pheno-
mena are due to a law is constantly mistaken for an
adequate statement of their cause.
THE UNIVERSAL BELIEF IN GOD. 27
the " Yes " or " No " on all great questions of
human life. But surely it is impossible to over-
rate their significance, as implying that the
conception of a personal God is an inherent
law of all human thought. The wisest judges
of evidence tell us, that the witness which most
impresses the mind is the accidental, almost un-
conscious witness, which comes from many sides,
and always speaks out of the abundance of the
heart. It is just this kind of witness which we
trace in human language on this great question.
There can be nothing new to any of us in this
reference to the universal testimony of language
to a God. But I cannot help thinking that we
take it too much as a matter of course, and do
not discern its full reality and significance. It
is not only universal, but it is permanent. By
its universality, it implies the existence of what
is called a religious instinct. But this is not
all. It is permanent, It belongs to language,
not in its first rudimentary stage only, but in its
progress towards perfection of expression, cor-
responding to growth in subtlety of thought.
If men try to get rid of it in describing the
conclusions of advanced science, they are re-
duced to a cumbrousness of expression all but
intolerable; and even then the most carefully
constructed lines of abstract expression fail to
28 THE UNIVERSAL BELIEF IX GOD.
keep out the irrepressible conceptions of Person-
ality. This permanence, hardly to be questioned
as a matter of fact, has its own meaning. It
shows that this religious instinct, if in form it
is modified, yet in essence stands unshaken
before the awakening of thought; and, as the
mind of man goes out along the various lines of
thought, it goes ever with him, growing by
degrees from a mere instinct into a rational
principle, systematizing its conclusions, and
harmonizing them with other forms of thought.
V. This universal testimony of mankind in
both its main lines — the direct witness of the
Religions, the indirect witness of the languages
of the "World — follows one and the same course.
It begins with simple rudimentary conceptions ;
it gradually works them out into complete sys-
tems of thought, passing on the way through con-
flicting forms, of which the deepest and truest
at last survives.
It is the neglect of this distinction between
the first instinctive thoughts, and the " third
thoughts" of full rational conception (so
forcibly insisted on by Coleridge) which is the
essential fallacy of the Comtist tabulation of
those three different theoretical conditions,
through which it supposes the human mind to
pass in every branch of knowledge — the Theolo-
THE UNIVERSAL BELIEF IN GOD. 29
gical, the Metaphysical, and the (so called) Scien-
tific or Positive. Surely it is obvious that these
conditions are in no sense antagonistic to or exclu-
sive of one another. The theological conception
— that is the belief in God — with which we are
concerned, may probably, in the first instance,
present itself to the mind, as the sole necessary
account, not only of the " Why/' but of the
" How/'' The analogy (that is) of our own
individual action may be so rigidly pressed, as to
lead to the idea of a direct and independent
action of the Deity in every event, or on every
individual being. So far it is imperfect, and
needs the correction which it speedily receives.
But the discovery of " Laws/'' (that is) general
methods of action, or of " Principles/'' (that is)
Attributes of a Supreme Mind, capable of being
in part understood and reflected by man, as
determining the Government of the World, in no
sense interferes with the conception of a God,
as the ultimate Cause of all things, of whose
Will we have the expression in the Laws, alike
of physical agency and of human life. On the
contrary, this conception alone gives anything
like completeness to the Metaphysical investiga-
tion. So, again, with regard to the " Positive "
investigation, tabulation, and classification of
facts, it is clear that it may dispel many crude,
30 THE UNIVERSAL BELIEF IN GOD.
metaphysical or theological conceptions ; it may
suggest caution, reticence, modesty, in all specu-
lation of either type. Such has, indeed, been
the result in all directions of the accumulation
of the treasures of inductive science. But to
attribute to it the power finally to supersede
either is to contradict the very laws of human
thought. In the name of true science, as well
as true religion, the mind stubbornly rejects the
attempt of the " Positive Philosophy 3) to impose
on it the duty of " giving over the vain search
after Absolute notions, the origin and destination
of the Universe, and the causes of Phenomena/' 4
There is a truer philosophy after all in the old
description of the prerogative of human reason,
as contrasted with brute instinct, that " conse-
cjuentia cernit, causas rerum videt . . . rebus
prassentibus adjungit atque adnectit futuras."" 5
The attempt to stifle the exercise of that prero-
gative must be vain, even when the soul con-
templates only the universe. But it is still more
vain, when the soul, becoming conscious of itself,
asks the questions, "What am I?" "Whence
came I?" " Whither am I going ? " All expe-
rience shows, sometimes in grotesque or pathetic
4 Comto, " Positive Philosophy " (translation by Harriet
Martineau), chap. i.
5 Cic. de Officiis, i. 4.
THE UNIVERSAL BELIEF IN GOD. 31
forms of extravagance, that if the soul cannot find
God (or rather, as a Christian would say, " be
found of God "), it will have some substitute for
Him, to which it may pay the homage, not only
of intellectual recognition, but of devotional
Cultus.
Now this process of development from insti ac-
tive conceptions, through the corrections of ob-
servation and generalization, to ultimate rational
principles, which we here attribute to religious
faith, is certainly the process discernible in the
growth of the great laws of all human thought,
whether in the intellectual or moral sphere.
Consider the actual process of knowledge in
relation to its two spheres — the Ego and the Won
Ego — the little world within and the great world
without.
The consciousness of Self — of a personal iden-
tity, of a will, of a reason, of a power of desire
and action — is absolutely instinctive in the
youngest child, or in the merest savage. Yet to
" know self" clearly and definitely, was long ago
declared to be the highest wisdom. All edu-
cation, by teaching from without or by thought
from within, is on one side, simply the drawing
out into conscious energy the faculties, which
lie (so to speak) in embryo in the first instinc-
tive knowledge.
32 THE UNIVERSAL BELIEF IN GOD.
The recognition of the Noil Ego — whether of
the world of things or the world of persons
around us — is, again, absolutely instinctive.
Every student of philosophy has learnt that, since
we know of that world simply by its impressions
upon our consciousness, it is easy to contend
that we have no certainty, except of the existence
of those impressions, and that there may be no
objective reality corresponding to them. But
all such speculations are simply the playthings
of philosophic subtlety. There is an instinctive
assumption of the reality of the external world.
It becomes a "form of thought" under which
we begin to observe, to think, to feel towards
that outer world, till out of this instinctive
recognition grows up the whole fabric of scien-
tific knowledge, physical and metaphysical. All
education on this side is simply the thoughtful
understanding of the various things and beings
around us, in their true relations to us and to
one another.
Nor is this otherwise in the moral sense, so
far as it deals only with earth. The love of self
and the love of our neighbour are its two great
laws. Do we not see them both beginning in
instinct, and both growing into settled and
rational principles ?
The love of self begins in the instinct of self-
THE UNIVERSAL BELIEF IN GOD. 33
preservation and self-gratification, and the delight
in the exercise of activity and power. It ends
in the deliberate recognition of self as a factor
in God's universe, in the resolution accordingly
to assert our own freedom, take up our own work,
defend our own rights, and to seek, in this world
and in the next, that individual perfection which
is happiness. So developed it is, in spite of its
intellectual and moral perversions, a fundamental
law of humanity. No theory of life can ignore
it, or depreciate it below its right level.
The love of our neighbour — or, to speak more
fully, the u being true in love" towards men — is
again (thank God!) absolutely instinctive, in the
thrill of natural affection, and in the natural
shame which crimsons the cheek in conscious-
ness of falsehood or dishonesty. But out of that
instinct it grows into the conception of a real
spiritual unity, binding men together in various
degrees of nearness, making it literally true that
" if one member suffer all suffer with it," brincr-
ing out (as Butler showed long ago, in his
" Sermons on Human Nature,") duty and social
affection as inherent laws of humanity, coexist-
ing with and dominating the love of self.
So it is that the great laws of human life
assert themselves. All men feel the instinct,
unless their nature be intellectually or morally
D
34 THE UNIVERSAL BELIEF IN GOD.
disorganized. In different degrees, seldom per-
haps in any high and perfect degree, do they
grasp the principle. But 'on that knowledge,
half-instinctive, half-rational, they act, till the
principle works itself practically into the very
texture of their life.
It seems to me deeply significant to note here
the exact analogy of the growth of the higher
knowledge and love of God, as we gather it from
this universal testimony of man. It shows it as
an universal instinct in the minds of all men. It
shows it worked out by the intellect, conscience,
imagination, affections, till it systematizes itself
in the religions of the world.
Nor does the analogy stop here. This process
of development is not carried out by each mind
for itself, nor does it run its full course in the
mass of human minds. Men sometimes speak,
scornfully or apologetically, of the fact that reli-
gion is in the great majority of men a sentiment,
a practice, a doctrine received by tradition from
the past, and learnt in each generation from the
teaching of the few. We answer that we should
be surprised if it were otherwise ; and we should
conclude, if it claimed a different character, that
it was not a power destined to influence the mass
of men and rule the destinies of the world. For
we observe precisely the same fact in the other
THE UNIVERSAL BELIEF IN GOD. 35
great laws of humanity. As there are few men
of science, few moral or metaphysical philosophers,
in whom the development of the intellectual and
moral powers is worked out systematically, so
there are but few who can be original thinkers or
profound students in theology. To the many
religion is half-instinctive, half- thoughtful. It is
known by its practical power to do the work, to
meet the needs, to solve (so far as they are
soluble) the mysteries of this world. That
knowledge is enough to save the soul and to
regenerate the life. It is the kind of knowledge
which always rules humanity. Yet the more
we ponder it, the further we can advance in it,
and find, till time shall be no more, new
tc depths in the wisdom and the knowledge of
God."
VI. There is then a truth in the old phrase,
" Natural Religion. " We Christians must hold
it an erroneous phrase, if it opposes itself to Re-
vealed Religion, as though Revelation from God
were not a part of His dispensation to our race.
We see, in fact, that what men generally call
" Natural Religion," is mostly the diffused re-
fraction of some Revealed Truth. All students
of humanity must hold it a delusive phrase,
when it leads men (as it led men of old)
to attempt to draw out a formal creed of its
36 THE UNIVERSAL BELIEF IN GOD.
principles, disentangled from all connexion with
the actual religions of the world. You may
as well try to exhibit an ideal man, with
no peculiarities of any existing race. But
as what jurists called the Law of Nature
was the common substance embodied in, and
therefore underlying, the systems of various
nations, 6 so there is a meaning in this phrase of
" Natural Religion."" It tells us that the main
idea of religion — the relation of the human spirit
to a personal God — is so deeply and widely natu-
ral, that without it you cannot satisfy the needs
nor understand the history of man. It tells us,
in the language of St. Paul on Mars' Hill, that,
even in ignorant worship, men are simply obey-
ing an irresistible law, which bids us "feel
after and find " in conscious thought " Him
who is " in fact " not far from any one of us,"
and " in whom/" whether we know it or not,
live
and move and have our bein
&■
How that instinct is worked out, modified,
yet never destroyed, by the consideration of va-
6 See Maine's " Ancient Law," chap. iii. " The Jus
Naturale, or Law of Nature, is simply the Jus Gentium, or
Law of Nations seen in the light of a peculiar theory." . . .
" After Nature became a household word in the mouths of
the Romans, the belief gradually prevailed among the
Roman lawyers that the old Jus Gentium was in fact the
last Code of Nature."
THE UNIVERSAL BELIEF IN GOD. 37
rions distinct lines of thought, we shall strive to
see hereafter. Meanwhile I ask you to ponder
thoroughly the significance of the fact itself.
When the contriver of some material system of
force or machinery can be sure that he has the
forces of Physical Nature with him, he laughs
all material obstacles and all objections of theory
to scorn. When a statesman can say, " The
law of human nature is on my side, and time
itself will fight for me/ J he is little dismayed
by opposition, however well organized and
strong. If we, in declaring God as revealed in
Jesus Christ, know that the belief in God is an
inherent tendency in man's spiritual nature, we
shall go on, troubled perhaps, but never cast
down, by speculative difficulties of understanding,
by moral perplexities of practice, even by the
errors and imperfections in the preaching and life
of Christianity itself. What we have to declare,
we confess " passeth human knowledge ,J to dis-
cover, and "passeth knowledge" perfectly to com-
prehend. But we believe that, in true though
in imperfect measure, men can know it, must
know it, will know it; and so knowing, "be
filled " up to the capacity of their finite nature,
" with all the fulness of God."
38 THE UNIVERSAL BELIEF IN" GOD.
NOTE (seep. 2 i).
Buddhism must be regarded as being a twofold pro-
test, first, against the monstrosity and oppressiveness
of the Brahminical system, in its wild mythology, its
elaborate sacrifices, and its grotesque superstition; and
next, against the artificial tyranny of caste, in reference
alike to God and to man. Hence its negative and destruc-
tive character as a system of thought ; hence the achieve-
ments, which (to use Max Muller's words) gave vitality
to the preaching of Buddha— "the simplicity of the
ceremonial, which he taught ; the equality of all men,
which he declared ; the religious toleration, which he
preached." As a solvent of the system, against which
it desired to protest, it employed the terrible conception
of an all but absolute Nihilism, in which the being of God,
the individuality of the soul, the existence even in Nature
of anything except a perpetual succession of phenomena,
are ail either denied or ignored. That solvent did its tre-
mendous work ; but, when the ground was cleared, the
Buddhist philosophy could not fill the void, and yet that
void proved intolerable to human creatures.
Accordingly, while in terms denying all personality and
immortality of the soul, it admits, apparently from older
religions, the idea of a Transmigration, in which, by a
strange inconsistency, continuity of individual being ap-
pears to be denied (the soul at each birth being supposed
to be a new soul), and yet the characteristics of each phase
of existence are determined under the law of Kharma (or
merit) — a sort of moral fate— by the conduct of the soul in
the previous stage. Through these various stages the soul
passes to Nirwana, which assumes the aspect of a rest
after "life's fitful fever," so often recurrent in various
phases. By this conception, rather of the nature of an
excrescence on the system, it creates certain refuges, im-
perfect enough in theory, but probably powerful in prac-
THE UNIVERSAL BELIEF IN GOD. 39
tice, against its theoretical negation of continuous per-
sonality and responsibility in the soul.
Similarly its denial of God, still theoretically maintained,
and sufficiently real to destroy vitality and progress in its
system, is (as is described in the text) softened by the
admission of lower forms # of worship, producing in the
minds of the people a virtual polytheism. Buddhism
accordingly wears a very different aspect in the eyes of
those who know it simply by study, and of those who
judge of it by actual experience.
In Ceylon, where perhaps Buddhism exists in its purest
form with least foreign admixture, the Buddhist temples
themselves are crowded with votaries, whose offerings are
made to the " memory of Buddha," with invocation of his
protection, in the striking presence of the gigantic image
representing him usually at rest ; while at the same time
there are other temples, ignored but tolerated by the Bud-
dhist priests, in which the Deivas (subordinate deities, or
rather Sal/xou^s in the old sense, having superhuman, but
not truly divine attributes) are worshipped in almost every
village in the Cingalese provinces of Ceylon. Mr. Spence
Hardy in his " Manual of Buddhism " intimates an opinion
that the whole Dewa system is an excrescence, borrowed
from without, and certainly it fits but clumsily into the
theory of Buddhism. But in any case we seem to trace
here two different reactions against the nihilism of Bud-
dhist theory. There is on the one hand a quasi worship of
the historical Buddha, who is (not without grounds in the
actual facts of his life and character) considered as their
highest known type of intellectual and moral excellence,
although undoubtedly of a sad, ascetic, all but despairing
morality. His devotees exalt him virtually above all other
beings ; he is represented as so absolutely perfect as to
have neither desire nor capacity of progress; and, accord-
ingly, attributes of power and wisdom are heaped upon
him, which are far too high for humanity to bear. There
is, on the other hand, under the shadow of this tran-
40 THE UNIVERSAL BELIEF IN GOD.
scendental reverence, a comparatively vulgar and tangible
worship of the Dewas, especially of the four great guardian
Dewas, which glides practically into a kind of tolerated
Polytheism. Moreover, under both aspects there exists
in great privilege and power a priesthood, although in true
Buddhism there ought to be neither priesthood nor sacri-
fice. To it is supposed to be confined the knowledge of the
true secrets of life, and to it therefore is paid an almost
unlimited deference.
In the Lamaism of Thibet —perhaps a less pure variety
of Buddhism — the worship of the Bhuddha passes from
reverence for a historical memory into a devotion to a
living deity, transmigrating through a succession of human
beings. " When the Tale Lama (the Grand Lama) dies,
or, to speak Buddhist language, when he undergoes trans-
migration, they choose a child who is to continue the
indestructible impersonation of the living Buddha." " He
is not only the political and religious sovereign of the
Thibetians, but he is their visible god." — (Hue, " Voyage
dans le Thibet," vol. ii., c. 6, p. 275, ed. 1850.) The election
of the Tale Lama from among the Chaberons, or living
Buddhas, through the drawing of a lot after six days of
fasting and prayer by the chief of the Lamas, is described
in the seventh chapter. The child thus chosen is worshipped
as a present deity.
It is clear that in the Nihilism of the Buddhist theory
man cannot live. Under the shadow which it casts there
grows up a worship of humanity, although that humanity
is declared to be cursed in the very fact of living; an
idolatry of the enlightened, and especially of the great
teacher of Nihilism ; and a crowd of superstitions, seizing
gladly on manifestations of supernatural power in the
visible universe. M. St. Hilaire enlarges on the light
thrown on modern nihilistic philosophies by Buddhism
itself. It would not be difficult to apply to modern society,
so far as it is influenced by such philosophies, the lessons
drawn from these reactions against it.
/
LECTURE IT.
THE METHOD OF THE KNOWLEDGE
OF GOD.
I. — NATURAL THEOLOGY AN INDUCTIVE SCIENCE.
II. — THE KNOWLEDGE OP THINGS BY INDUCTION.
III.— THE KNOWLEDGE OF PERSONS —
(a) BY INDUCTION.
(b) BY SYMPATHY.
(c) BY PAITH.
IV. — THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD.
(a) BY INDUCTION, ASCENDING TO THE DIVINE MIND.
(b) BY KNOWLEDGE OF THAT MIND, THROUGH SYMPATHY,
THE NECESSITY, AND DANGERS OF ANTHROPOMOR-
PHISM.
(c) BY REVELATION, GENERAL AND SPECIAL.
" That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might
feel after Him, and find Him, though He be not far from
every one of us."— Acts xvii. 27.
It is one of the necessities, possibly one of the
compensating advantages, of the system of the
delivery at intervals of the steps of a connected
argument, that each week the lecturer is driven
42 THE METHOD
to present clearly, before his own mind, and the
mind of his hearers, a short retrospect of the
way already trodden. I accordingly remind you
how in the last Lecture, after advancing for
Theology the claim to be considered as a system
of really scientific thought, I endeavoured to
set before you the immense significance of the
undoubted historical fact, that the belief in a
Personal God is universally in almost complete
possession of the ground of human thought,
being witnessed to, directly by the Religions,
indirectly by the Languages, of all nations. I
reminded you that the method of its growth, from
instinct through practice into systematic know-
ledge, placed it in the strictest analogy with the
cognizance of those great laws of Truth and
Right, which actually rule mankind. I pleaded
for the truth implied in the right use of the
old phrase " Natural Religion/'' that the concep-
tion of God is as really inherent in the nature
of man, as those fundamental conceptions of
Truth and Right, on which the whole fabrics of
Science and Morality are built.
I. Now when we have thoroughly satisfied our-
selves historically of the universal establishment
of a belief in God, and drawn the all but irre-
sistible inference that its existence implies some
natural law in human thought, the question next
OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 43
presents itself, " How, and by what law has it so
established itself ? " St. Paul, in the words of the
text, speaking to the enlightened heathenism of
Athens, declares (though under a characteristic
difference of aspect) the same truth which he
had proclaimed to the peasants of Lystra, that
" God left not Himself without a witness.-" But
of what character is this universal witness ? The
word " knowledge " is used in different senses ;
and, from want of right distinction between them,
impossibility is often predicated of knowledge
in general, when it ought to be predicated only
of one particular kind of knowledge. Of what
nature is the knowledge of God, thus attainable,
and thus in various degrees attained, by man?
Is it, on the one hand, a knowledge of demon-
stration, like the knowledge of a mathematical
axiom ? Is it, on the other, knowledge claiming
what we call " moral certainty/' like the know-
ledge which is gained by all Inductive Science?
Let me remind you that, although this ques-
tion is of deep interest, yet the answer to it does
not affect the claim of this knowledge to be a
power at once ruling human thought, and in-
spiring human life. The controversies which
have taken place on this subject, from the days
of Clarke and Butler downwards, may be decided
one way or the other, without affecting this
44 THE METHOD
claim. If demonstrative certainty be the more
unquestionable, yet it is moral certainty, which,
prevails far more widely in life as it actually
is, and exercises a larger practical power over
human action. It has been rightly described as
" the guide of life/ 5
The very title of these lectures virtually con-
tains the answer which I venture to give to this
question. For it speaks of the cumulative
force of convergent evidences : and the very ex-
pression belongs to the field of Inductive Science;/
since no one ever seeks to accumulate evidence
in support of an absolute mathematical demon-
stration. I cannot but hold that Natural Theo-
logy must be an Inductive Science from the
very nature of the case.
If, indeed, the question were simply that
which has been discussed asrain and asrain —
whether the conception of the existence of a
First Cause is, or is not, a necessary conception
— we might answer otherwise. It is certain that
the present condition of the universe has had a
beginning in time ; and that there must have
been some First Cause, itself uncaused, seems to
be demonstrable. So far as this we may go
with those who would a priori demonstrate a
God. If, again, it be urged that the existence
in the human mind of the idea of Infinity proves
OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 45
that there is an objective reality, an Infinite
Being", corresponding" to it, and that in that
Being" we must find the First Cause, I should
not be prepared to deny the argument, though it
would be difficult to secure for it universal
acceptance. 1 But Natural Theology is not con-
tent with these abstract propositions. It inquires
of what nature that First Cause is, and if that
nature be Personal, what are its attributes. So
inquiring, it enters the inductive sphere. For,
even if it be contended that we must infer an
original Will, because the one true Cause known
by experience is Will, still we cannot be sure that
there is no other cause conceivable. We have to
inquire whether there are signs, which a posteriori
may test the probability of this our inference.
Now, in all reasoning on data, demonstration
seems to be possible, only when, as in Pure
1 See Butler's "Analogy," part i. chap. vi. "We find
within ourselves the idea of Infinity, that is, of Immensity
and Eternity, impossible even in imagination, to be re-
moved out of being. We seem to discern intuitively, that
there must, and cannot but be somewhat, external to our-
selves, answering to this idea, or the archetype of it. And
from hence — for this abstract, as much as any other, requires
a concrete — we conclude, that there is, and cannot but be, an
Infinite and Immense Eternal Being existing, prior to all
design contributing to His Existence, and exclusive of it."
The passage is remarkable, as lying outside Butler's usual
line of reasoning.
46 THE METHOD
Mathematics and Logic, we create for ourselves
the data, on which we reason ; because then we
know them completely in their actual essence,
all that they are and all that they imply. But
when we have to reason on data not so created
by ourselves — on the things (for example) of
nature, or on the human world around us — we
cannot know them absolutely and completely ;
our knowledge is of certain properties in them,
not of their origin or formation, not of the
essential constitution, which makes them what
they are. Hence in this sphere of thought,
absolute demonstration, implying complete
knowledge of the data, is impossible. Inductive
reasoning, starting from observation of the pro-
perties of things, next inferring from such obser-
vation the laws which regulate them, and the
causes from which they spring, and then from par-
ticular instances generalizing ultimate principles,
is here the sole process of thought ; and its results
are convictions, at first only probable, and ascend-
ing at last to what we call " moral certainty/''
If a man, knowing what the data are, and what
are the steps of the deduction, denies the conclu-
sion of a mathematical demonstration, we say
that he is incapable of reasoning. If a man,
after he has had laid before him all the evidences,
by which a great law of Natural Science has
OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 47
been ascertained to the satisfaction of the world,
professes himself still unsatisfied — allows that it
holds in fifty cases, but suggests that it might
break down in the fifty-first — we do not call
him unreasoning but unreasonable. We imply
that he resists a natural law of thought, but
one of a wholly different kind.
II. It should be observed, however, that there
is a difference in the method of our Induction, as
applied to things, and as applied to persons ; and
also that Induction occupies a larger place in the
means of our actual knowledge in the case of
things.
(a) In the Science of things we have to rely
ultimately on the Inductive processes of observa-
tion and generalization therefrom. Of course,
in actually working out knowledge, we employ
both the Inductive and Deductive processes,
especially when we use in Physical Science (as
in most cases we are now able to do) the pro-
cesses of mathematical reasoning. But there
always lies on the threshold of investigation the
assumption of some law (such as the Laws of
Motion in physical Astronomy), which is not
established by mathematical demonstration, but
suggested by observation, generalized by analogy,
and verified by its accordance with hosts of in-
dependent facts. Accept that law as true;
48 THE METHOD
then from it you may deduce mathematically an
infinite number of consequences. Such deduc-
tion may (as in the discovery of our last planet)
lead to fresh advances in knowledge, with which
inductive processes have nothing to do. But
the acceptance of the law itself is the ultimate
basis ; and it is (I repeat) established by reason-
ing, which ascends only to moral certainty. In
the knowledge of things without us, this alone
is found possible ; but this is also perfectly suffi-
cient, to be a foundation of the great fabric of
theoretical Science and of practical life.
It is indeed true that at all times, and especially
now, abstract speculation here claims its place.
Science is fond of " passing beyond the experi-
mental region/' and busying itself with theories
of what may be the ultimate physical constitu-
tion of matter and of force ; and it may often show
that its theories will account for a large class of
phenomena. But here it has to confess itself
speculation, or even imagination. It can only say
' So it may be/ though it is constantly tempted
to over-dogmatic assertions, almost amounting
to u So it is." The meeting-point between the
deductions from its theories, and the results of
patient induction from experimental knowledge
of facts, is often very hard to find.
III. When, from the knowledge of things, we
OF THE KNOWLEDGE OP GOD. 49
pass to the knowledge of persons, then, in the
first instance,, the same law holds, with only this
difference (highly important, but not affecting
its character as an Inductive Science), that we
know men partly by observation, partly by
sympathy. This implies, in other words, an
extension of our means of observation. Our
thought can range not only over the great world
of action without, but also over the little world
of our own human consciousness within. If we
ask ourselves how it is that we know any human
being by our own unaided powers of knowledge,
so as to know not merely what he does, but in
some degree what he is, we shall find that we
have to rely on both these processes of observa-
tion and sympathy.
(a) First, by observation, we notice how a man
acts or endures under various circumstances,
either the circumstances of common life, or the
crucial tests of special trial, speculative or moral.
We go through, in such observation, though
mostly unconsciously, the various processes which
Inductive Logic draws out elaborately in its
well known rules. We come to conclusions as
to his character — intellectual, that he is wise or
foolish, intelligent or dull— moral, that he is
true or false, indolent or energetic in duty, loving
or cold-hearted. Then, gliding into a deductive
E
50 THE METHOD
process of thought, we infer, with various degrees
of certitude, that in the future he will act in
such and such ways, determined by the qualities
we think we have discovered in him ; and on
that inference we ourselves constantly act, risk-
ing on its correctness, perhaps little, perhaps,
our all. Now in all this we deal with the man
just as we should deal with a material thing,
either a substance or a force. So identical, in
fact, is the process, that, by our inherent tendency
to refer all events ultimately to agents, when
we are speaking of the thing, we constantly use
language strictly applicable to the person, and
talk of the play of such a force, or of the beha-
viour of such a substance under particular tests.
(b) But in respect of the person, we have an-
other means of knowledge, the power of sympathy.
We extend the area of our observation, by turn-
ing our eyes from him to ourselves. We consider
what are our own thoughts, emotions, princi-
ples, as springs of action ; we are conscious of a
will, capable of being impressed by those various
springs of action, but also capable of acting (as
we say) arbitrarily, without any conscious motive
except will, or of choosing between the various
directions, in which various motives solicit or
press. We know, or we guess, how under his
circumstances, we ourselves should act, speak,
OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 51
or feel. " Put yourself in his place/'' is a recog-
nised method of studying" of human nature,
fruitful of infinite results. Believing the
person we observe to be, with whatever indi-
vidual peculiarities of difference, a being like
ourselves, we read his mind in our own. De-
liberately or intuitively we draw our infe-
rences concerning him ; and the subtler insight
of sympathy constantly aids or supersedes the
coarser methods of mere observation. Nor are
we deterred from pursuing this process, even
when the person we contemplate is known to be
greater, wiser, better than ourselves. Such
knowledge induces caution and modesty in in-
ference, teaching us to draw positive conclu-
sions as to his nature from the points which we
can understand, while we shrink from denying
the existence of notions and principles in him,
which we cannot understand. But it does not
prevent our judgment by sympathy from being
true, and fruitful of results.
(c) Still, even with this aid, our knowledge is
not, and cannot be, demonstrative. We are yet
within the lines of Inductive reasoning; and, in
fact, although our powers of observation are thus
reinforced, yet the subject at the same time
increases, at least as much, in difficulty and
intricacy. Science of human nature is quite as
E 2
52 THE METHOD
real as science of material things ; in itself and
in its results it is unquestionably nobler and
more important to us : but it is almost equally
unquestionable that it is far vaguer, less definite
in its rules, and less measurable in its
results. In respect of absolute knowledge,,
each man is to his fellows (to use a well-worn
phrase) " unknown and unknowable " All
experience proves it; all literature declares it.
That it is so, is a part at once of the dignity
of human nature and the burden of human life.
If we would really know any Personal Being
— what his actions really mean, what is the
true object of his existence, what are the real
attributes of his secret soul — both observation
and sympathy are confessedly insufficient. But
then there is introduced a new factor in the
complex fabric of our knowledge, wholly uncon-
nected in itself with Inductive reasoning, and
subject to a different law. This factor is the
Self-revelation of the person whom we contem-
plate. He must tell us what he is. Such reve-
lation may confirm or contradict our previous
Induction. According" as it does so, we have
less difficulty, or greater difficulty, in accepting
it. Nor can we help scrutinizing his positive
claims to our confidence, whether intellectual or
moral, to see whether he is able and willing to
OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 53
tell the truth. We may even feel hound to
cross-examine, on the a priori assumption of the
law court that all evidence is likely to be defective
in both these requisites. But it is clear that
(so far as it is accepted) it gives us knowledge
of a totally different kind from the other. If
the man were perfect in wisdom, so as absolutely
to know himself — perfect in truth, so as to be
incapable of falsehood — then we should be said
not to think, to conclude, to infer, but actually
to know him, so far as our minds are capable of
knowing 1 , and so far as human language is capable
of expressing" the whole of a human character.
The acceptance of this self-revelation with
various degrees of faith is a necessary element
in life. Perhaps it is not too much to say, that,
with whatever reservations, it is in all cases
our principal means of knowledge of persons.
But wherever the nature of the person con-
templated rises above our own, it becomes more
essential than ever. It is then predominant,
I may say all but exclusive of other means of
knowledge. The father reveals himself to the
child, the learned to the ignorant, the civilized
man to the barbarian, the man of genius — the
poet, the philosopher, the prophet — to humanity
at large. Such revelation not only completes
our knowledge of him, bat often throws light on
54 THE METHOD
our own observation, both of the great world
without us, and the little world within. How
often at the utterance of genius the mind leaps
up in glad recognition of thoughts, complete in
idea and vivid in beauty, which have floated,
vague, imperfect, half formed, and half formless,-
before our own dimmer eyes !
It comes then, after all, to this, that for true
knowledge of things aud persons alike, absolute
demonstration by our own power is impossible.
In the science of things, we are content with
Induction and Speculation ; if we would know
persons, we must add to the Laws of Induction
and Speculation the Law of Faith. 2 Every day
we do this ; for if we did not, we could not live.
IV. Let us consider how these principles of
knowledge bear upon that universal conception
of a God, of which we have already spoken.
What is the process going on in the mind,
when, from the vague instinct of God, which
seems to be inherent in man as man, he passes
2 I venture to refer here to three singularly able dis-
courses by the Bishop of Peterborough, at Norwich, in
1875 (Hamilton and Adams), dealing with " Christianity
and Scepticism," and " Christianity and Faith." His con-
clusion is, "Christianity offers a certainty, partly of
reason, partly of faith, partly of experience " after faith.
He shows decisively that such certainty is the Law of all
human life, so far as it is in contact with personal being.
OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 55
on to conscious thought ? He begins in almost
all cases (as we may see in the normal growth
of the childish mind towards full maturity) by
observation. In the process of that observation,
no doubt, he carries with him, as an influence
determining thought, the consciousness of him-
self, and of the effects which his actions produce
every day. But still, as in the childhood of the
individual mind, so in the earlier stages of the
thought of humanity, the objects, consciously
and distinctly contemplated, are without, not
within. The epic poetry of external life and
action precedes the lyric expression of internal
thought and feeling. So he looks out on the
two great worlds of things and persons. His
first observation is that they are distinct in
character, yet inseparable in their action and re-
action on each other. First over the physical
world, then more gradually over both worlds, he
discovers that there are unseen powers that rule ;
in both he discovers what are called " Laws,"
reducing the infinite variety of objects and
powers to combinations of a few great principles
of elemental substance or force; of both, if
not of the raw material of both, he concludes
irresistibly that there must have been a begin-
ning, and at that beginning some First Cause,
itself to all human thought final and absolute.
56 THE METHOD
What is that First Cause ? It must be either
material or spiritual, or compact of both ; for,
except as a halting -place of despair in the face
of mystery, the mind will not accept the co-
existence of two separate yet Eternal and self-
existent principles. Which is it to be ?
(a) The answer given depends in theory on
the degree in which man recognises in himself
a true personality — that is a will, acting with
design and a principle — as an ultimate fact, in-
capable of being confused with any material
force. Every philosophy or religion which is
Atheistic, denies this independent existence,
and consequently any immortality in the soul.
But if we examine historically the character of
the answer actually given, it seems that the
course of the ancient Greek speculation, on the
ruins of which St. Paul stood at Athens, illus-
trates with singular clearness the general pro-
cess of human thought in the inquiry into the
First Cause.
It had first, its crude, instinctive recognitions
of a Divine Power, in the ordinary forms of the
popular mythology, which, by their very per-
manence under strange superstitions and such
presumptuous handling of the poets as shocked
the gravity of Plato, showed a latent force of
truth. Xext to these came the more recondite
OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 57
teaching of the Mysteries, apparently tending
towards the recognition of one Supreme Power,
perhaps a living God, perhaps a Soul of Nature.
But to these succeeded the free thought of Philo-
sophy ; and what was its course ?
First came the vague guesses of the Ionic
School, as to some elemental substance. It is
water, said one ; it is air, said another ; it is
fire, said a third ; it is no one substance, but
earth in its complex variety, replied a fourth.
Next succeeded the subtler answer of the Py-
thagorean School — " It depends on no elemental
substance at all ; it is number, that is, propor-
tion in combination, harmony, or what we call
' Law/ " 3 Lastly arose Anaxagoras, and drew
the inevitable conclusion, to which the Pytha-
gorean answer pointed, "All was Chaos; but
Mind came, and ordered all things in per-
fection/'' 4 How the chaotic All came into being,
3 The mysticism of the Pythagoreans as to number is well
known. (See Thirl wall's History of Greece, c. xii.) No
doubt they often spoke, as if number had an objective reality
as a basis of existence, or an energetic power of acting on
the material of the universe. But it is difficult to believe
that these were anything else than transcendental expres-
sions of the simple idea (itself a great advance on the rough
guesses of the Ionic school), that on combination and or-
ganization, as well as on material, the Kosmos depended.
4 'Ofxov iravra xp^arra' elra Nous i\6wv aura 5<6/co'cr^7jo'e.
See Plato's Phaedo, chaps, xvi. and xlvi.
58 THE METHOD
lie did not inquire. It was enough for him, as
yet, to grasp the belief that this world of min-
gled matter and spirit had its archetype in a
Divine Mind. So far, at least, he felt after
God and found Him ; and although, if we may
trust Plato, 5 his search was a hesitating and in-
consistent one, falling back too much from his
own grand principle on the many superficial
notions which it should have superseded, yet its
enunciation became a new starting-point in
thought — the germ of a Theistic philosophy.
For here the thought of man arrives at a
crucial point. If the ultimate cause be a Thing,
either an elemental substance or pervading
elemental force, or if it be simply a Law of pro-
portion and harmony, the mind can go no
further towards any discovery of its nature.
That Cause, except in the bare fact of its exist-
ence, must remain unknown and unknowable;
for simple observation and reasoning will take
us no further ; and the barren abstraction (like
the to ov of the Eleatic School) will exercise no
influence on thought or life. It has been re-
marked, 6 with satire not undeserved, that it is
5 I allude to the interesting sketch of his own cnrly
speculations as to Causation put into the mouth of Socrates
in the latter part (probably the most purely Platonic part)
of the " Phoecio." See chaps, xlv. — xlvii.
6 Kingsloy's " Phaethon," p. 14.
OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 59
a poor religion which exchanges the sublime
opening of the sixth chapter of Deuteronomy
for the declaration, " The Something our
Nothing is One Something." It is impossible
that a soul, which is conscious of itself, can rest
on such a vague impersonal cause.
(b) But if man once accepts the doctrine of an
Eternal Mind ordering all things, he will never
be contented with the vague unreality of a
diffused intelligence, "becoming in humanity
conscious of itself," with (be it remarked), as
inseparable from that consciousness, the sense
(which under this hypothesis is a delusion) of
personal individuality. Mind without person-
ality is a thing to the ordinary man fairly in-
conceivable. Accordingly he ascends at once,
naturally and inevitably, to the conception of a
Divine Person. The moment he does this, there
opens before him the other means of knowing
God, by the knowledge of sympathy.
It cannot be too soon or too frankly acknow-
ledged that, unless we start from the conscious-
ness of our own personality — the consciousness
of will, of purpose, of right, of love — no theo-
logy is possible. The purest Nihilism — the
Nihilism of the Buddhist Theory — has by a true
instinct fixed on the delusion of our own indi-
vidual existence, as the first delusion to be got
60 THE METHOD
rid of on the way to Atheism. The modern
Atheistic philosophies, with equal sagacity, at-
tack the same consciousness in us; now by
making spirit a kind of matter, or a result of
material organization ; now by absorbing the
individual soul into some great soul of the
universe. But happily the sense that " I am 1"
remains utterly indestructible, both in the indi-
vidual consciousness, and the collective witness
of all human society, through the languages,
laws, and institutions, without which that society
cannot be maintained. It cannot be shaken,
unless all reasoning, and even all sensation, is
given up as utterly deceptive, and unless all
human society is acknowledged to have stood
through all the centuries on what is a mere de-
lusion. That it is impossible for us to form a
logical scheme for its reconcilement with the
reign of Law, and with the unity of the whole
creation, is perfectly true. Theorists, to whom
perfect logical consistency is as the breath of
life, accordingly shut their eyes to this un-
manageable factor; they may iancy they have
got rid of it, so long as they remain in their
studious retirement ; but the moment they cross
the threshold of active life, it reappears. As
Butler says, with grave irony, 7 whatever may be
? See the "Analogy," part i. chap. vi.
OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 61
" the opinion of necessity/' as a theory, it is
certain that in this world " we are treated/' by
self, man, and God, "as if we were free." In
this respect, accordingly, the common sense of
man is wiser than the philosopher, in refusing
the most logical and coherent theory, which does
not accept the whole of the strange but unmis-
takeable facts.
We need not be afraid of acknowledging that
the belief in God and the consciousness of a
true self must stand or fall together. They
mutually imply, and in practice mutually
strengthen each other. In fact, the union of
the two beliefs alone explains the two un-
doubted facts of the reality and the limitation
of human freedom. It is comparatively easy to
conceive how a free will can exist, limited by the
dispensation of a Supreme Will, and judged
within the limits of capacity and opportunity
ordained for it. But it is impossible to conceive
how it can find any place at all in a system
either purely material, or simply an embodiment
of One pervading Spirit. Hence it is that, in
proportion as man realizes his own personality,
as distinct from, and in some sense superior to,
the physical forces around him, and as incapable
of submitting absolutely to the will of other
human souls, he recognises the Supreme Power
6'Z THE METHOD
as a real Person, capable of being known in part
through sympathy, although, as to perfect com-
prehension, " passing all knowledge/''
Thus, man is conscious in himself of will,
guided by design, ruled by the conviction of
righteousness, and the enthusiasm of love.
Knowing these things to belong to the' highest
part of his own nature, he expects to find them
not less, but more, in a nature higher than
his. Through these forms of consciousness,
distinct but hardly separable, he conceives the
attributes of the One God.
Pirst, he is conscious in himself that he can
will ; and that, except when he acts arbitrarily,
for the sake of self-knowledge, or in the mere play
of mind, he wills and acts with a purpose. In
the possession of that will he is conscious of a
power to mould the forms of matter, and to set
in motion and direct the play of force. In the
world around, he sees what appear to be vivid
marks of design and power, acting with design
like his own, though infinitely transcending his
own. He infers, instantly and constantly, that
the First Cause, being a Spirit, acted with design,
and that for this design all matter, all force, all
created spirits work.
Next, he is conscious of the majesty of right,
as that which must guide his action, and the
OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 63
growth of his soul to perfection ; and behind
that majesty, he sees the form of a retribution,
which enforces its demands, and avenges any
disobedience to them. Then he looks abroad
into the world, both of things and persons, and
thinks that he sees traces of a moral govern-
ment, not perfect here, but implying tendencies
to perfection. He concludes that the Divine
Spirit is a moral Being like himself, though
so infinitely above himself, that all the
brightest graces in man are but faint reflections
of the attributes of God ; that His will is for
righteousness, and that in His hand there is
retribution for the here and the hereafter.
Lastly, he is conscious of love, recognising an
unity which in various degrees binds man to
man, rejoicing in the happiness, the goodness,
the reciprocated love, of all spiritual beings. He
looks on the world ; he finds it full of what seem
provisions for hairpin ess and goodness of all
created beings. He infers at once that God is
Love, that it is of the essence of Deity to rejoice
over all that is good, and to accept the offering
of His creatures'' love.
But all this (men say) is pure anthropomor-
phism, fashioning God in the likeness of man.
Of course it is ; of course it must be. The only
spirit which man perfectly know r s, is his own.
6i THll METHOD
Through his own, he must infer what the attri-
butes of spirit are. 8 He ought not to pretend
that so he can fully and absolutely express the
attributes of God, as they are in themselves, or
as they might be in relation to other classes of
creatures utterly unlike man. But he may be-
lieve that, so representing- them, he is right so
far as he goes ; and that he expresses them as
they really are, so far as they hold any relation to
man and are intelligible to man.
u We are His offspring " (so spoke the Theistic
philosophy of Greece) . As we look on the face
of the children, shall we not gain some glimpse
of the glory of the Father ?
It is true that anthropomorphism has always
had its dangers.
In their instinctive desire of full compre-
hension, men constantly forget the distinction of
8 It has been truly remarked by Dr. Abbott (" Through
Nature to Christ," chap, xi.), in criticizing the phrase "the
Eternal, which makes for righteousness," that according
to the sense which we give to the word "makes," we may
be "anthropomorphic," " zoomorphic," or " azoomoi-phic,"
but that we must be one of the three. "Supposing," he
adds, " each of these three hypotheses to be dangerous, I
should prefer the first as least dangerous." "Why should
we be ashamed of anthropomorphism ? Who would not
twenty times sooner worship a man than worship a ten-
dency ?" Dr. Abbott will carry with him in this part of his
book many who cannot accept his subsequent conclusions.
OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 65
which we have spoken above. In various de-
grees they have supposed that through man
God is perfectly known, whereas He can but be
known imperfectly. Hence came that error, of
which the idolatry denounced in the text is the
grossest form, conceiving that God can be per-
fectly set forth, if not to the eye, at least to the
mind, in conceptions embodying all the limita-
tions and imperfections of the human spirit. At
times, perplexed by that mystery of Evil — which
is in all lines of thought the one great cc offence,"
against which in different degrees every soul at
one time or another stumbles — men have either
dared to find in God the attributes of the evil
too well known in man ; or, in recoil from that
horrible blasphemy, have framed the wildest
theories of rival Gods, of an intractable matter
limiting *the power of the Creator, and the like
— theories which can be never said really to live,
and which yet never absolutely die. Even
when these grosser forms of error have been
avoided, men have theorized or dogmatized, as
if they could perfectly enter into the counsel of
God, so as to say " This must be," or " This
cannot be," as if they could even tell, not merely
the great principles of God's dispensations, but
the methods by which they must be carried out. 9
9 Butler treats this " idle and not altogether innocent "
F
66 THE METHOD
But these abuses do not destroy the true use.
According' to the old true saying, " Man reveals
God/'' If, in all men but One, that Revelation
be imperfect, yet it is true so far as it goes, and
is the only knowledge possible to man.
By a right instinct, man has never ceased.
" to feel after God and find Him/-' by the
united powers of observation and sympathy.
His discoveries or his guesses he has recorded
in the Religion, in the Philosophy, and in the
Poetry, of all humanity. To put them aside for
the notion of an ultimate material substance, or
to be content with the recognition of " Law,"
which is no cause at all, we believe to be not an
advance, but a retrogression in thought.
(c) But is this all ? Shall we here break the
analogy, which rules in the case of the knowledge
of all other Personal Beings ? Shall we suppose
God to sit far off in majesty, passionless as some
great Egyptian idol, while His creatures blindly,
in toil, in doubt, and in pain, struggle up to
Him ? Or shall we believe that He in some
way reveals Himself to man, stoops down to
lighten the way of His children, and to draw
them on to Him in heaven ?
I need not say what answer Christianity gives
presumption of human reason with woll-deserved severity.
See " Analogy," part i. Introduction.
OF THE KNOWLEDGE OE GOD. 67
to this great question. But we are concerned
at present to inquire into the process by which
the conception of God has established itself in
human thought generally. Here the first thing*
which strikes the inquirer is this, that it is
an error (however common parlance may excuse
it) to regard the conception of a special Reve-
lation of God as a thing distinct from, or
opposed to "Natural Religion."" 1 Rather we
should hold it an integral part of that " Natural
Religion ; '■ for certainly all the religions of the
world take it for granted that in " divers times
and manners/' God does reveal Himself to man,
and that such Revelation, in the true sense of
the word, is " natural/'' as an ordained element
in the knowledge of God. Next, on a survey
of the actual circumstances of the case, and an
inquiry into the credibility of the universal
1 Ifc must, I think, be concluded that the tacit acceptance
of this distinction at the hands of the Deists by most of
our English Apologists places the Christian argument at
much disadvantage. Butler's chapter on the " Importance
of Christianity " (" Analogy," part ii. chap, i.) suffers
much from the supposed necessity of drawing this hai'd
and fast line. Christianity has to be regarded as "a repub-
lication of Natural Religion," and also as " containing an
account of a dispensation of things not discoverable by
reason," instead of being itself the completion of " Natural
Religion," and in respect of its preparatory revelations " as
old as the Creation."
* 2
68 THE METHOD
tradition, the thought suggests itself, whether
such Revelation is not required as an adequate
cause of these circumstances — whether, in fact,
if we reject the tradition as simply fabulous, and
disbelieve the existence of any Revelation, we
can sufficiently account for the unvaried and
well assured belief in God, which so unquestion-
ably pervades humanity. Nor can w r e in this
inquiry forget, that, if there be a God, all
analogy declares it to be in the highest degree
probable that He w r ould reveal Himself to man ;
and that accordingly the w r eight of antecedent
improbability undoubtedly tells very heavily not
against those who believe, but those who dis-
believe any Revelation. Thus, in fact, to a be-
liever in God the one question is, whether such
Revelation is merely through the voice of God,
speaking to each individual soul, or, whether
over and above this, there have been special
Revelations, given in extraordinary and mira-
culous clearness, to be the treasure not only of
the individual receiver, but of all mankind, not
of one generation only, but of the whole of time.
This question becomes an historical question.
No believer in the latter alternative should be
tempted to extenuate the pow r er of the Revelation
of God to each soul, not only giving (so to speak)
the rough material of knowledge of Himself in
OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD, 69
His works, but by a Divine Spirit acting"
directly upon the spirits of men, and writing (as
Holy Scripture has it) the substance of His
Will in their hearts. All religions contain (as
I have said) the expression, more or less em-
phatic, of this truth ; all English Deism, from
the days of Lord Herbert of Cherbury down-
wards/ has implied or expressed it. God forbid
that we who hold that there is " a Light of
God, which lighteth every man/" should ever
forget it ! We could not even deny that it
might have pleased God so, and so only, to meet
the gropings of His creatures after Him. It
we choose to please ourselves by framing a
world on hypothesis, we might possibly so ac-
count for an universal belief in God. The "Vox
Populi" — the testimony of humanity, gradually
forming and establishing itself — would then be
to us the only " Vox Dei/'' But the true form
of this question is whether He has so done.
Christianity expressly says that He has not.
Tt declares that from the very beginning God
has spoken to men by special Revelations, some
of which (not necessarily all) are treasured up
2 Like the Roman Jurists, who would find a code of that
"Law of Nature" which underlies all other codes, Lord
Herbert drew out the five Notitice, which he conceived to
be engraved on the human soul.
70 THE METHOD
for us in Holy Scripture, and all of which simply
lead up to the perfect Revelation of Himself in
the Lord Jesus Christ. To us the Vox Populi
is not the only Vox Dei ; clear over all, like the
dominant note of some full harmony, rises the
Vox Christi, and to it all other Voices of God
serve but as under-tones.
For this last great assertion Christianity
gives its special reasons, of which this is not the
time to speak. At present it belongs to our
subject to remind you that historically all human
traditions point to special Revelations of God,
with an unanimity in substance, and yet an
infinite variety of tone and detail, which, on any
other subject would be acknowledged as an in-
disputable evidence of some great ultimate fact.
Wherever any religion has asserted and system-
atized dominion over the souls of men, the belief
in such a Revelation is the very backbone of its
power.
Nor can I omit to notice, in connexion with
this historical tradition, that, if we examine how
all other knowledge of Nature and Humanity
is gained by man, we certainly do not find that
it dawns, equally and freshly, on every individual
soul. Each onward step is taken by the few
leaders of mankind — " inspired men," as, by an
unconscious testimony of language, we term
OP THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 71
them — men who have (again the word is
significant), and often believe that they have,
" a mission." The many have to sit at their
feet to be taught, able at most to judge of what
they cannot originate. Such teachings simply
alter the whole face of the spiritual world.
Long after the lives of great men are over, some-
times when their very names are forgotten, the
truth which they declare becomes the treasure
of Humanity, and each succeeding generation
merely receives it and carries it on. Why
should it be thought that in the highest of all
teachings — the teaching of God — this law is
broken, instead of assuming a higher and
nobler form? Surely analogy pleads for the
acceptance of the truth, that God did so speak
to man " at sundry times and in divers manners
by His prophets." We grant that no analogy
can represent to us what, by its very nature,
can have no analogue, unless in the history of
some other world — I mean the perfection and
finality of the Revelation of God in Christ. But
for special Revelations it does plead, as an integral
part of Natural Religion, arid as a chief cause
of man's universal belief in God.
Such certainly is the line of thought as to the
knowledge of God, which St. Paul set forth at
Athens. He appealed to their observation of
72 THE METHOD
God's work, " making all men/'' " giving to them
all things." We know well how their noblest and
w T isest philosophy had read this lesson. He
appealed to the knowledge and sympathy of One
"in whom we live and move and have our
being/' and of whom their own poets had said,
" We are His offspring." Again we know
how, perhaps above all people, the Greeks had
in conception realized the Divine element in
man, and had known God through it. But
these two means of knowledge combined, he
described as a u feeling after God " in the
dark, an " ignorant worship " of One still <( un-
known." Therefore he crowned all with the
direct revelation, " Him declare I unto you ;"
and he based that revelation on the authority of
the risen Lord Jesus Christ. " Some " (we
read) " mocked," as their successors mock still.
Some put off the consideration of these deep
matters till they should have investigated more
obvious truths ; so certain philosophies do still.
Only a few clave to him. But that teaching,
mocked -and neglected, proved itself a teaching
which could really bring to the knowledge
of men — the mass of simple and practical men
whom the schools of philosophy despised — the
truth of God, which their "sages would have
died to learn." Why was this ? Because, un-
OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 73
doubtedly, it had in it the supernatural power
of the Son of God Himself, in His Word and in
His Grace ; but may we not add, Because,
supernatural as it was, transcending human
science, it yet accorded perfectly with the
natural process of the knowledge of man, by its
appeal to the Law of Induction to prepare the
way, and to the Law of Faith to complete it ?
Those who sigh for the absolute demonstrative
knowledge, which of any being other than our-
selves is impossible, may turn from it in a proud
despair, crying out, " God is unknown and un-
knowable/' We are content to know God (be
it said reverently) by the same kind of know-
ledge as that through which we can know man.
That knowledge we find to be already a know-
ledge sufficient to live and die in — to give a new
spring of life to our life, and to scatter by its
brightness the shadow of death. For its per-
fection we are content to wait, till ' c we know,
even as we are known," and exchange our vision
" through a glass darkly/' for the vision of
" God as He is."
LECTUEE III.
THE MANIFOLD CORD OF NATURAL
THEOLOGY.
I.— THE MANIFOLD LINES OF THE INDUCTION OF GOD, COR-
RESPONDING TO THE DIFFERENT FACULTIES OF MAN.
II.— THE NECESSITY OF THEIR COMBINATION, FROM THE UNITY
BOTH OF SUBJECT AND OBJECT.
III. — THE FORCE OF THEIR CONVERGENCE, FAR EXCEEDING
THE MERE SUM OF THEIR SEPARATE FORCES.
(a) BOTH WHERE THEY AGREE,
(b) AND WHERE EACH SPEAKS ALONE.
IV.— EXAMINATION OF THE ACTUAL CONDITIONS OF THE
REASONING.
(a) THE FORCE OF THIS CONVERGENCE.
(b) THE GREAT " OFFENCE " IN THE MYSTERY OF EVIL.
V. — THE NEED OF A REVELATION.
" A threefold cord is not quickly broken." — Eccles. iv. 12.
The last lecture added to our first consideration
of the undoubted fact, and the immense signifi-
cance, of the universal belief in a Personal God,
a brief inquiry into the process, by which
THE MANIFOLD CORD, ETC. 75
such knowledge of God lias been attained in
actual thought.
It seemed clear that the absolute demonstra-
tion, which characterizes mathematical and logical
reasoning, was possible only when the data of our
reasoning were absolutely created, and therefore
absolutely known, by ourselves. Of any ex-
ternal Thing — a material substance, or a natural
force— we can but judge by Induction; in
the case of a Person we can first extend the
machinery of our Induction by adding to external
observation the insight of Sympathy ; and then,
if we would complete the whole process of
knowledge, we must listen to his disclosure of
himself, and so add to the Law of Induction the
Law of Faith.
It is not hard to apply these principles of the
method of knowledge to that knowledge of God
which (as we have already seen) expresses itself in
all the Religions and Languages of human kind.
The first lecture dwelt on the true sense of the
old term, " Natural Religion/' as implying that
the conception of God is as inherent in man's
nature as the conception of freedom, of truth, or
of right. We now claim that, instead of being
distinguished from all " Revealed Religion/' it
should be taken, on the authority both of analogy
and of tradition, to depend, not only on the indue-
76 THE MANIFOLD CORD
ti.ons of what is commonly called " Natural Theo-
logy," but on the Revelation by God of Himself,
both to each individual and to the race of man
as a whole.
From these introductory considerations we
now pass on to examine the extent and the
composition of this Induction, by which men
"feel after God and find Him."
In each line of thought I take it for granted
that it must follow that same well-known path
of Inductive Reasoning, by which we arrrive at
the knowledge of the law of any physical force
or the character of any personal being. First
comes observation for ourselves, or teaching by
others, of facts — whether these be the outward
facts, of which our senses bear witness, or the
inner facts, which we learn by our own con-
sciousness to exist in ourselves, and conclude by
analogy to exist, with whatever variations, in
our fellow-men. Such observation (be it always
remembered) is possible only under the guidance
of certain ideas l or " forms of thought," through
which the masses of isolated impressions group
themselves in a coherent order. Then we pass,
1 Of definite and formed knowledge, we accept the
maxim, Nihil est in intellectu, quod non prius in sensu.
Of the formative power we add the old caution, Nisi
intellectus ipse.
OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 77
in the next stage, to the enunciation of some
general law or principle, suggested by these
partial observations, after we have thrown off
all accidental disturbing influences, and sub-
jected the results of observation to crucial tests.
It is at this stage (be it remarked) that the
inventive or philosophical faculty intervenes, and
here, therefore, especially the traces of original
genius are found in the history of scientific pro-
gress. 2 Lastly, comes the process of Verification,
by deduction from our assumed principle of the
phenomena or actions, which should occur on the
supposition of its truth, and by comparison of
the results so obtained with independent obser-
vation in the field of Nature and Humanity.
This process seems essentially characteristic of
Inductive Reasoning, be its subject what it may.
As we apply it to secondary existences, material
force or personal being, so we must apply it to
seek out the ultimate existence in God. Such
is the process (for example) by which men have
so often arrived at the conception of a Great
Designer of the universe, who made all things
for a purpose, and for that purpose sustains them
2 Thus, for example, in Physical Astronomy the perfection
of the results of pure observation of many generations may
be exhibited in " Kepler's Laws ;" but it will be remem-
bered how even the vigorous and enterprising mind of
78 THE MANIFOLD CORD
day by day. It is (as has been well remarked) 3
a process as old as human thought itself, differing
but in degree in the pages of Xenophon or of
Paley, in the simple narrow reasoning of an
intelligent peasant, or the large thoughtful
observation of a philosopher.
This I take for granted. It is implied in the
description of Natural Theology as an Inductive
Science. But the especial points which, using
the metaphorical language of the text, I desire
to insist upon are three. First that, such being
the characteristic method of Induction, there
are various lines of thought along which it
must proceed. Next, that the results of all must
be combined, and each must be considered as
designed for such combination. Lastly, that in
this combination we must estimate not the mere
aggregate sum, but the convergent force of the
conclusions arrived at along each of these various
lines. There is a "threefold cord;" it may not
be untwisted ; and the various strands combined
will not be " quickly broken."
Kepler laboured in vain for the discovery of the principle
underlying them. When the genius of Newton once dis-
cerned that principle, all was clear for the magnificent
discoveries of the future. The history of this process in
the various branches of Science is traced again and again
by Whewell in the "History of the Inductive Sciences."
3 Macaulay's Essay on Bacon.
OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 79
The outline of this view I proceed to sketch
out, designing to fill it up in the lectures which
succeed.
I. Now, with regard to the first of these state-
ments, but little need be said. It would seem
only reasonable that, in relation to the ulti-
mate problem of human life, obviously con-
cerning man's being as a whole, every faculty
of his nature, characteristic of that nature as
such, should have its function of inquiry. If
the practice of life cannot be carried on without
the use of all these faculties, far less is this likely
to be true of the inquiry into its foundation.
But to verify this consideration, we turn to actual
experience. In all our attempts to know and to
judge of personal beings, it is almost a common-
place to observe, that the process of knowledge
is seldom, if ever, carried out through the intel-
lect alone. We do not really know what an
individual is, nor can we judge of humanity at
large, if we regard men coldly and critically, as
we should contemplate material substances or
lifeless machines, excluding all conceptions of
moral relations to ourselves, and shrinking from
every touch of sympathy or enthusiasm. We find
that the purely intellectual knowledge — the so-
called "knowledge of the world" — leads the
clearest and most passionless intellects into errors
80 THE MANIFOLD CORD
both speculative and practical, as to human na-
ture, which far duller men of higher moral sense
and more genial sympathy easily avoid. No
man who depends absolutely upon it can ever
be a true philosopher or a political leader of men.
For it deals far too much with the outside of
human nature ; it disregards some, perhaps the
most important, of the qualities which make
men something more than machines. Accord-
ingly it is a commonplace — familiar alike in
literature and in practical experience — that " he
knows best who loves best/'' provided always
that his love is not a mere sentiment, but a
thoughtful principle, clothing the firm skeleton
of duty with the warm flesh and blood of affec-
tion.
Now if, following the verdict of humanity at
large, we believe God to be a Personal Being,
we see at once that this principle must apply to
the search after Him. Even if we accept that
belief as a hypothesis worthy of investigation, we
must try at any rate, whether there are any signs
that this principle does apply. If it does apply —
if (that is) the moral faculties of our nature
imperiously claim their place in relation to the
Supreme Power — then this very fact is an
argument that the hypothesis is a true one.
My contention is that it does apply. Histori-
OH" NATURAL THEOLOGY. 81
call}' it has been applied in all ages ; theoretical
examination defends this historical practice, and
asserts that it ought to be so applied. Not
through one human faculty but through all, we
feel after the ultimate Being. In the human
spirit Ave distinguish various faculties. We speak
of the Reason searching after Truth, of the Con-
science recognising Right, of the Imagination
having its intuition of Beauty, of the Affections in
their natural tendency to recognise unity by love,
and their morbid capacity of breaking unity by
hatred. These principles of Truth, Right, Beauty,
Unity, cannot be regarded as separate and ab-
solute existences. They are supreme in the
structure of the universe; they must be attri-
butes of the One ultimate creative power, what-
ever it is. In it they are combined ; hence un-
questionably there follows at the least a very
high probability, that, in the search after that
Power, there must be a combined theology of the
intellect, the conscience, the imagination, the
affections. Each faculty has its own distinctive
line of thought, and in that line is capable of
working out a true Induction; but still all
coexist, and of all account must be taken.
II. But I pass on to the next point. Do they
coexist in complete separation, each working its
conclusions out, utterly unaffected by the others,
G
82 THE MANIFOLD CORD
in its own special sphere ? Or do they so coexist
as to bear upon and imply each other, so that
to conceive of any one as isolated is to conceive
of it imperfectly or wrongly ?
It would have been impossible (I believe) for
any one to have refused the latter alternative
but for a confusion, which constantly meets us in
various quarters, between distinction of thought
and separation in fact. Distinct these various
lines of argument may be ; separate they cannot
be. It is essential to my argument to recognise
that each line of thought is, in the abstract,
distinct, and in its process independent of the
others. For on that distinctness the value of
their coincidence in testimony depends. By an
effort of the mind we can gain "dry light"
through each, for the time regarding the rest as
non-existent. But they are not intended to be
separate in fact; each strand is elaborated in
order that all may be twined together. 4
4 It seems accordingly that there is such a thing as
right " prejudice." I mean the constant recollection, while
we are pursuing any line of reasoning, of known truths
deducible from other forms of thought, which are touched
by it, and the presumption, if they seem to he over-
thrown by it, that there may possibly be some flaw in the
reasoning. A Physical philosopher would certainly examine
any phenomena, seemingly strange and abnormal, with a
prejudice in favour of the Law of Gravitation or of the
Indestructibility of Force ; and be very slow to accept any
OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 83
In the phases of actual thought, and in the
actions to which they lead, we observe that one
or other faculty generally predominates; but
the others coexist with it in real but secondary
power, and their coexistence undoubtedly influ-
ences the predominant principle, just as different
under-tones of harmony modify the impression
made on the ear by the same leading note. Thus
in the rigid intellectual processes of Science we
have been rightly warned (as by Professor
Tyndall) of the uses of imaginative Intuition.
Under the aesthetic appreciation and the artistic
reproduction of beauty, we have learnt from Mr.
Ruskin to trace scientific laws of truth, and even
u lamps " of moral principle. The most in-
stinctive affection defends itself, if attacked, on
grounds of reason — sometimes profoundly true,
sometimes almost ludicrously or pathetically
fanciful. The sternest and strongest Duty feels
itself too weak, unless it calls to its aid the
enthusiasm of affection. If it were possible to
cultivate but one faculty, deadening and stunt-
ing all the rest, the result would be not only to
apparent witness against their universal application. If a
purely physical line of reasoning apparently leads to an
immoral or an Atheistic result, it is certainly equally
reasonable for one who holds the Instinct of Right and
the Instinct of God to he universal, to look upon it with a
similar suspicion.
84 THE MANIFOLD COED
overthrow the balance of the soul, but to destroy
all but one of the strands of the golden cord of
knowledge, by which it is linked to the world of
being without. Every one who has ever watched
the play of his own mind on any subject will-
know how these various phases of thought,
mingle with, at times even seem to confuse, each
other. Every one who has studied human na-
ture will be aware how the character of any
man, as a whole, affects every single action of
his mind, moral, intellectual, imaginative.
If we ask why this is so, the answer is simple
enough. It is so, because the subject is one ; it
is so, because the object of thought is one.
It is so, because the subject — that is, the think-
ing soul — is one, whatever be the phases of its
action. We talk of the Reason and Conscience,
the Imagination and the Affections, as if they
were distinct spiritual existences, and picture to
ourselves a kind of mental drama, in which they
act upon each other. It is convenient to do this ;
it is probably necessary for distinctness. But
we must beware lest in the process we should
glide into the Buddhist idea of the soul as com-
posed of " groups" — material qualities, sensa-
tions, abstract ideas, tendencies, rational faculties
—with no personality binding all together ; and so
allow the underlying unity of the soul practically
OV NATURAL THEOLOGY. 85
to escape us. After all, it is the same " I" who
thinks and fancies, or resolves and loves. All
these various lines of spiritual action start from
the same source by the same impulse. They
cannot but affect one another, presuppose each
other, fit (so to speak) into each other, for the
perfect action of the soul.
It is so, again, because the object contemplated
is one. No single line of thought can approach
it on all its sides. No one can yield perfect
knowledge, even up to the standard of human
capacity to know. If the object itself is to stand
out in solid reality, the pictures of it from dif-
ferent points of view must be not looked at suc-
cessively or in separation, but be superimposed
and blended into one stereoscopic conception.
So, therefore, it must be in the Induction of
of God. He (we believe) has made the soul for
Himself in the perfect unity and variety of all its
faculties. Each, as it seeks Him, must draw
the others with it. The knowledge " which is life
eternal " must pervade the whole being. First,
because the reason, conscience, imagination, affec-
tion, are all really one, there must be an unity
in the Natural Theology of which each claims its
own peculiar share. Next, as they tend to Him,
converging again after their divergence from
their one source, is it not reasonable to think
86 THE MANIFOLD COltD
that, while all see Him, each may catch some
feature in the Divine Image, which is either
invisible, or at least blurred and indistinct, to
others ?
Let us suppose that the Theology of the Rea-
son leads to results, in themselves imperfect and
ambiguous, is it not reasonable that the Theology
of the Conscience should be called in to supply
imperfection and to determine ambiguity ? If
the Moral Being, the Judge of the earth, of whom
the Conscience tells us, seems far away from sin-
ful men in His unapproachable purity, is it wrong
to seek from the Theology of Love the assurance.
of His unity with men, weak, blind, sinful though
they be ? If many lines of thought converge
accurately up to the very edge of Mystery, can
we help believing that they meet somewhere
behind the veil ?
It is on this idea that I desire to lay
especial stress. Every line of Natural Theology
in itself not only is imperfect, but ought (if
I may so express it) to be imperfect, because,
even for the sake of the right balance and
growth of our faculties, we ought not to pursue
any one without implying the others. Each may
have its rightful predominance at any time and
for any particular mind. But predominance is
one thing; exclusive isolation is another.
OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 87
Perhaps it may seem as if this proposition
needed no enforcement, and as if, when explicitly
enunciated, it would be accepted by all. It
may be so. But in practice I cannot help
thinking that it is constantly neglected.
The plainer and more flagrant phase of this
neglect is seen in the tendency to confine the
mind to one line of Natural Theology, as if
it alone deserved notice, as if it ought to be
conclusive in itself, as if, supposing this not to
be so, we have a right to dismiss the very idea
of Natural Theology as worthless. We re-
member how Paley, in one of the best known
and most admirable works on this subject,
(within its own range and in relation to the
knowledge of his time all but perfect) dwells, in
the name of Natural Theology, on one line of
thought only — the evidence of Design in Nature.
"We notice how others give up as inconclusive,
and therefore as non-existent, all intellectual
reasoning, content to find God through the
" Categorical Imperative " of the Conscience.
A recent work of singular force and interest (on
the " Unseen Universe ") leads ' ' from a purely
physical basis " to God and immortality. All
this is well, if the intention be to exhibit, in all
the purity of its native force, the single argu-
ment which we think the strongest, or which
S8 THE MANIFOLD CORD
we understand best. There is perhaps some
profit, certainly some pleasure, in turning the
guns of the exclusive scientist upon himself. But
it is not well, if, even for a moment, we forget
that in so doing we are for special purposes
artificially putting asunder what God has
united in our nature.
Another form, less distinct, but in essence much
the same, is found in Mr. Stuart Mill's "Essay
on Theism." 5 Here all the lines of argument
5 There are, indeed, other objections to Mr. Mill's treat-
ment. It is to be noted that in the outset he holds it his
duty " to maintain complete impartiality and to give a fair
examination to both " the a priori and a posteriori methods
of inquiry ; but he adds in the same breath his conviction
that one (the latter) " is in its nature scientific, the other
not only unscientific, but condemned by science." Accord-
ingly it is not surprising that, in spite of his excellent inten-
tions, he utterly fails to do justice to the a priori argument
from Causation, while he lays all stress on the actual
evidences of Design, remarking (with a sense of relief)
that in it "we have at last arrived at an argument of a
really scientific character," and refusing to be driven from
it by Evolution theories. The argument from " the general
consent of mankind" is inadequately touched, with a
curious notion, that a belief, if " native in the human mind,"
must be " independent of evidence " for its development,
and that its degradation in the savage mind proves that
there can bo no common substratum in that mind and the
mind of civilized man. Tho argument from Consciousness,
speculative and moral, is again dismissed with a summari-
ness, which would have been impossible in any mind not
radically antagonistic to all Intuition. In fact the only
OV NATURAL THEOLOGY. 89
are recognised ; but each is separately examined,
and, because held to be insufficient in itself, is
summarily dismissed, instead of being" allowed
to leave behind its residuum of evidence, how-
ever imperfect, to be taken account of in
subsequent investigations. It is not perhaps
wonderful that at last that argument from
Design, which alone is accepted, should be
accepted with much hesitation, when it is thus
considered in absolute isolation from the rest.
For by this method it is required of each line of
thought, that it should be separately conclusive,
on pain of being put out of court with a calm
severity as absolutely valueless.
Now, I contend that both these methods are
virtually unscientific. For neither certainly
represents the way in which we proceed in all
other reasonings, whether in Inductive Science
or in judgment of human testimony. If a
Physicist desires to know the nature of a
material substance, he does not confine himself
to any one line of investigation, mechanical,
chemical, or electrical, even if it chance to seem
line really worked out is the line of argument from Design,
and in this a positive result is arrived at. But, even were
it otherwise, I venture to think, for the reason given in the
text, that the whole plan of this examination of each evi-
dence in separation is radically unsound.
90 THE MANIFOLD CORD
to him the fittest ; he will combine all ; if each,
taken alone, be inconclusive, he will not dismiss
it as unmeaning, or necessarily attribute in-
conclusiveness to the whole. If a critic desires
to ascertain the genuineness of a book, it is
mere pedantry to confine himself, either to the
external evidence of testimony, or the internal
evidence of language, style, or treatment. To
each must be allowed its due weight ; defect in
one may be compensated by excess in the other.
If the object be to ascertain a historical fact, or
estimate a historical character, only the man,
who has to support a foregone conclusion, will
rely, either merely on what a man says for him-
self, or merely on what others say of him,
either on the unsympathetic keenness of the
enemy, or the insight of affection in the friend.
When all are combined, then, and then only, do
we hold the picture complete, at once in its
lights and in its shadows. Now what is
necessary in order to follow out adequately the
lower and less difficult kinds of investigation,
cannot be less necessary — and indeed, ought to
be far more necessary — in the higher search
after God. We claim that our conclusion should
depend on the whole cord, not on any of the
untwisted strands. It is in the highest degree
unlikely that any one should be strong enough
OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 91
to sustain it ; for this would go far towards
indicating that the others were useless.
III. I plead therefore for the combination of
the various elements of Natural Theology against
the arguments, which deal with one exclusively,
or, if they recognise all, yet deal with each
successively, as though it alone existed. But I
must go further] still. We cannot be satisfied,
even when the aggregate result is contemplated,
if it be estimated as though it were but the sum
of the results obtained by each. This is the third
point — perhaps the most important of all — in
examining the nature of the Theological Induc-
tion, on which I desire to lay especial stress.
For this principle of estimate appears to be
infinitely below the truth. Its inadequacy
is recognised in all reasonings on Evidence,
whether the evidence of scientific conclusion or
of personal testimony. Wherever we perceive
the convergence of two independent lines of
reasoning, or the coincidence of two obviously
independent witnesses, the effect is so far more
than double of the testimony of either, that from
the merest presumption the mind darts at once
to the assumption of a high probability. Sup-
pose we bring in a third from a wholly different
quarter. Is the result no more than triple of
the original presumption ? On the contrary, it
THE MANIFOLD CORD
rises to a moral certainty, which men would be
thought all bat mad to question. If (for
example) by estimating mechanically the specific
gravity of any heavenly body, an astronomer had
guessed that by its lightness it might well be a
mass of incandescent hydrogen, who would con-
sider this to be anything but the merest guess ?
But let the spectroscope be turned upon it, and
disclose the lines in the spectrum, which cor-
respond to the flame of hydrogen ; then .that
mere guess assumes almost the character of an
undoubted truth. When the critic, proceeding
on strictly internal evidence, has shown the
abstract probability of this or that correction of
the text of an ancient author, men may hesitate
still. But let even a single manuscript be dis-
covered, which, perhaps against all others,
contains his emendation, on the grounds not
of criticism, but of simple historic testimony,
then slight as the new authority is in itself, its
appearance changes the whole aspect of things ;
what dwelt before in the cloudland of ingenious
conjecture is placed at once on a solid ground. Nor
is it otherwise in respect of personal testimony.
No one supposes that the coincidence of two in-
dependent testimonies simply doubles the force of
either. No one doubts that the convergence of
many lines of circumstantial evidence, each per-
OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. do
haps in itself weak, may forge an iron chain of
cogency. A single witness, let it be as authen-
tic as it may, is by the wise rule of law,
held to be insufficient. .But it is an accepted
rule that " in the mouth of two or three
witnesses every word shall be established.''''
This point is to my mind one of transcendant
importance, and I cannot think that it has been
as constantly and familiarly recognised as it
deserves. But I must still observe further — what
may at first sight appear almost paradoxical — that
such coincidence, while it directly establishes the
points in which these various testimonies agree,
gives an indirect, yet very substantial confirma-
tion to the points, on which each speaks alone.
For it tends to prove in each the existence of
correctness, solidity, veracity of testimony : and
if these attributes be once established, we can-
not but assume the high probability of their
continuance, even when each witness treads his
path alone. As a matter of fact, it is (I sup-
pose) by the union of the coincidence of many
evidences, and the independent witness of one
single evidence, that Induction of Science, and
establishment of facts by testimony, have really
achieved their chief triumphs. When mechanical,
chemical, electrical tests of a substance have so
far coincided as to establish the accuracy of the
94 THE MANIFOLD CORD
conclusions derived from each, no one need
hesitate to add to the qualities of which all bear
witness, those special qualities, which can be
tested only by one of those lines of investigation,
and to which necessarily there can be no multi-
plication of testimony. In those masterly
summaries of the results of evidence, which
come to us from the judicial bench, there are
always elements, on which one witness only
speaks, accepted because in other points, by
coincidence with the rest, his accuracy and
veracity have been tested and not found want-
ing.
Now it is for the full recognition of these prin-
ciples in respect of the lines of Natural Theology
that I especially plead. It may be possible to
show that no single line taken alone leads even
to moral certainty. It might be, though diffi-
cult, yet not absolutely impossible, to contend
that the mere aggregate by addition of their
results advances us but a little way. But, if
proceeding, as they undoubtedly do, in partial
or complete independence, they converge to com-
mon conclusions; then the argument of truth
from that convergence is all but irresistible ; and
if, while thus coinciding in many points, each
contributes one peculiar feature to the picture of
the One Transcendant Object, then their former
OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 95
coincidence bears indirect evidence to the truth
of these isolated declarations.
IV. Now this is, as it seems to me, exactly the
condition of things. The Theology of the Intellect
has itself two independent branches — the argu-
ment from Causation, leading up to a First Cause,
and the argument from the evidence of Design,
leading up not to a First Cause only, but a Per-
sonal Creator. The two lines of witness have a
close parallelism of idea; but each is perfectly
distinct — the one looking back to the past, the
other onward to the future. Suppose it be con-
ceded that the first, considered alone, may leave
us in doubt whether the First Cause be material
or spiritual, or, at least, whether Personal or Im-
personal. The investigation of the second comes
in, at once to confirm the former reasoning as to
the existence of some First Cause, and to decide the
point on which that reasoning left us for a time
in doubt. Is it not clear that thus, at once coin-
cident with and supplementary to the other, its
appearance far more than doubles the confidence
which could be placed in either alone ? But let
us call another witness — the Theology of the
Imagination — proceeding by a wholly different
process from that of the Intellect, viz. by the syn-
thesis of poetic or artistic intuition, instead of by
the analysis of close gradual reasoning, and blend-
96 THE MANIFOLD CORD
ing the cold light of understanding with the
warm glow of affection. By this wholly different
method it brings out to us the same truth, the
conception of a First Cause and an All-wise
Creator; while it adds a still stronger conviction
that in the presentation to us of the beauty of
creation mind deals with mind, and it su^o-ests
at least emotions not of wonder only but of
adoration. Can we refuse to recognise here a
powerful element of confirmation ? By itself we
may well hold a Theology of Imagination to
be far too vague and shadowy for definite belief,
too poetic for the wear and tear of life. But its
very contrast of method gives force to the con-
viction, produced byits coincidence in conclusions
with the firmer, harder lines of thought.
This group of witnesses is a group of much gene-
ral similarity, though of special peculiarities in
each. Many haveheld (withButler) thatinitself it
is abundantly sufficient to establish the existence
of " an Intelligent Author of Nature/' and simply
to leave to Moral Theology the task of discovering
His moral attributes and relations to us. But
if this conclusion be questioned, we examine that
Moral Theology, as another witness of wholly
distinct character from the former. We take
up the Theology of the Conscience. We find
how, proceeding by a wholly independent path,
OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 97
the Conscience, by its witness of the Eternal
existence of Right, and by its ineradicable fore-
boding of Retribution, leads us to a Supreme
Being and to a Personal Being, so confirming at
every point the results of the other two lines of
thought. But then it adds a yet nobler feature,
and shows how He who is the Supreme Cause
and the All-wise Creator, is also the All-righteous
Judge. Does it not set its seal with potent
authority on the conclusions already drawn ? Do
not they, in their turn, throw a light on the truth
of this Theology of Conscience, which tends still
to confirm it, when it passes alone into the dis-
tinctly moral sphere ? Yet even now this is not
all. There is another twin witness in this second
group. Among the Supreme powers which rule
human life we recognise not only Reason and
Conscience, but Love. That Love has its Theology.
By its very nature incapable of fixing on any
dead thing or abstract principle, it bears witness
to the Personality of the Power which made and
rules the world. By that same nature requiring
goodness, real or supposed, in the object on which
it rests, it adds its voice to the witness of Con-
science to the goodness of the Creator and the
King. Yet since it is in itself a recognition of
unity, and of some degree of likeness, between the
lover and the loved, it goes on still further to
H
98 THE MANIFOLD CORD
recognise in the Majesty of an Eternal and All-
righteous God the face of one who has a true
spiritual unity with us, who is indeed not only
a First Cause, a Creator, a Judge, but " Our
Father which is in heaven." It is by this com-
plex process — the same which mostly leads, in
all Inductive Science, to moral certainty — that
the soul of man feels after God. Only when you
conceive of its various lines, not in mere aggre-
gation, but in convergence, can you rightly
estimate its force.
Let me remind you in passing that, in relation
to the other Law of Natural Religion — the Law
of Faith in some Revelation of God — this same
principle has its place in estimating the evidences
on which that Revelation is accepted. The lines
of that evidence also are many, every one needing
and implying the rest, all converging to one
central result, and yet each conveying its own
characteristic witness. Only when we consider
them as a whole in their mutual relations, can
we estimate the force of the conclusion, which
has bowed Humanity atthe feet of Jesus Christ —
first, to cry, ' ' Lord, to whom shall we go ? Thou
hast the Words of Eternal Life ; w then, accepting
these words, to go on, free from all weariness of
doubt and toil of reasoning, " to know" in faith
" the things which pass our knowledge." But
OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 99
on this it is not yet the time to speak. There is
a certain glimpse of appropriateness in the simi-
larity of the processes, by which the two great
elements of "Natural Religion," properly so
called, establish their claims to our allegiance.
But at present it will simply be my endeavour
to work out in succeeding lectures the sketch
here given of the relation of the lines of Natural
Theolog}', in the mingled coincidence and inde-
pendence which give to their testimony such
all but irresistible force.
It does, I cannot deny, seem to me all but
irresistible ; I do not therefore wonder that, as we
saw in the First Lecture, mankind at large has
found it so. For certainly no such convergence
can be pleaded for any other theory of the origin
of things. Each has to choose its own ground,
and decline to fight elsewhere. Materialistic
Theories, for example, if they can claim any
witness from external nature, have the con-
sciousness of a spirit in man so strongly against
them, that they are driven, first to discredit its
testimony, and then to deny its existence. Pan-
theism, if it seem to account for the great world
without, is met by the irreconcilable contradic-
tion of the sense of individuality, especially in its
moral aspects ; till it is reduced to reckon that
ineradicable consciousness as an inherent delu-
H 2
100 THE MANIFOLD CORD
sion of the mind, to be silenced if it cannot be
destroyed. Agnosticism, virtually atheistic, and
indeed the only form in which Scientific Atheism
can well exist, may possibly represent itself as
innocent or tolerable before the bar of the pure
Intellect ; but before the imperious demand of
the Conscience for a basis of duty, and of the
Affections for an object of love, it is forced to
acknowledge itself as insufficient, in its pure
negativeness, to supply a key to the meaning of
life. The belief in God may at least claim that
it is the only hypothesis, which can venture to
recognise all the facts of life, and to appeal to
all the faculties of the soul.
Of course, as Bishop Butler long ago warned
us, 6 there must be, in all fairness, due weight given
to a similar convergence, if such convergence can
be traced, of difficulty and objection. But if we
look at the facts, we shall find that there is but
one quarter in which any shadow of this conver-
gence can be traced. I mean the great mystery
of Evil in all its branches — whether in physical
suffering, apparent waste or failure, loathsome-
ness and decay, or in moral evil, both in guilt and
degeneracy — seeming to imply imperfection in
the Government of the world, and, whether it
be punished or unpunished, equally throwing
G See Butler's ''Analogy," part ii. chap. vi.
OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 101
doubt upon the Peifect Love of the Creator. In
that convergence of witness against the belief in
God — strangely evaded, still more strangely
accounted for, in many theories of philosophy and
religion — we trace the one great difficulty in
Natural Theology; sufficient, not indeed to
overthrow, but certainly to obscure and impair
its witness. In the presence of that mystery,
human thought, as we have already said, halts
for a time at Dualism in one or other of its forms.
But necessarily dissatisfied with this, as a mode
of thought unsatisfactory alike to the intellectual
craving for unity and to the imperious assertion
by the conscience of the inherent supremacy of
righteousness, it stands in great degree at a loss,
and cries out for some Revelation of God to
decide this intolerable conflict.
V. For we do need here a Gospel from on high.
No Revelation, which fails to grapple with this
enemy, can be a religion for Humanity. There
are two voices in the soul : one telling of sorrow,
sin, unbelief; the other callingto joy, righteous-
ness, faith. We should contend that, even in
themselves, there is a victorious power in this lat-
ter voice, which the other may confuse but cannot
drown. Still we cannot deny the conflict. Only
from God Himself, speaking through man and
to man, can come the truth which shall strike in
102 THE MANIFOLD COED
with authority, to silence the voice of evil, to
sanction the utterance of good.
While, therefore, I seek to draw out the com-
bined witness of these various lines of Natural
Theology, I must again ask you at all times to
bear in mind what is the degree of stress we
actually lay upon them. The belief of the
Christian, bringing out into clearness and living
power the vague beliefs, hopes, speculations of
humanity, always holds that man is not left
wholly to this Law of Induction. We believe
that, in actual fact, as an integral part of the
system of the world, God has given His Special
Revelation to men ; and that this Revelation,
not only meets these various lines of thoug-ht,
coming out from the darkness up to which they
converge, and binding all together " around the
feet of God;" but especially and principally
grapples with that great mystery of the existence
of Evil which troubles alike every line of Natural
Theology, and bids men doubt, sometimes the
unity of the First Cause, sometimes the wisdom
or power of the Creator, sometimes the righteous-
ness of the Supreme Judge, or the love of the One
Father. While, therefore, we delight to trace
these reasonings and aspirations of the soul to-
wards Heaven, its native home, we never for a
moment suppose that this home keeps its gates
OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 103
barred in an inhospitable coldness, till men
struggle up, in darkness and pain, to burst them
open. The gates of our Heavenly City stand
open day and night, that through them the light
of truth and the warmth of love may stream down
to earth, and by a spiritual attraction draw the
soul up to Heaven. In the famous lines of our
great poet, John Milton, which tell how virtue
. . . Can teach the soul to climb
Far above the starry chime,
we recognise what the noblest heathen philosophy
has taught. But in the words which follow —
And if virtue feeble were,
Heaven itself will stoop to her,
— we hail the utterance of the faith of the Chris-
tian.
Well it is for us to test the various strands of
the threefold cord, not easily to be broken. But
let us not hold that they are made by man's
hand, or that man's own power must raise him
up by their golden band. It is from Heaven
that they came; it is from Heaven that the
power still comes, which through them lays
hold of the weakness of man, and brings him
safe to the place appointed for him. The first
idea is a noble dream ; the last (thank God) has
been found by thousands to be a blessed reality.
LECTURE IV.
THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT
CAUSATION.
I.— THE INQUIRY INTO CAUSATION AN INTELLECTUAL NE-
CESSITY,
(a) ITS APPLICATION TO PHENOMENA OR EVENTS.
(6) ITS APPLICATION TO THE SUBSTANCES OF THE UNI-
VERSE.
II. — THE INQUIRY INTO THE FIRST CAUSE OF THE UNIVERSE
IN ITS FOUR GREAT KINGDOMS.
(a) THE CREATION OF FORM. THE FORCE OF THE ARGU-
MENT FROM THE ANALOGY BETWEEN THE WORKS OF
ART AND NATURE, AND FROM THE POWER OF ART
TO CO-OPERATE WITH NATURE.
(b) THE CREATION OF SUBSTANCE, INCLUDING BOTH
MIND AND MATTER, TRANSCENDING ALL EXPE-
RIENCE.
III. -TnE NATURE OF THE FIRST CAUSE. THE THEORIES OF
(a) MATERIALISM.
(b) PANTHEISM.
(c) DUALISM.
(tZ) THEISM.
V. — SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENT.
We understand that the worlds were framed by the
THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT : CAUSATION. 105
word of God, so that the things which are seen were not
made of things which do appear." — Heb. xi. 3.
The main argument of these Lectures has now
been sketched in outline. First, in every line
of thought there is a process of Induction, by
which we work out into definite explicitness the
instinctive sense, which I believe to be inherent
in all humanity, of the Presence of God. Next,
since under all variety the subject — the thinking
mind — is one, and the great object of contem-
plation is one also, it would seem that these lines
of thought cannot be,, and ought not to be,
regarded in isolation from each other; as in some
reasonings for and against Natural Theology it
is too much the habit to regard them. Thirdly,
in virtue of the Law of Convergence, as we ac-
knowledge it in pursuing scientific investigation,
or in estimating human testimony, their com-
bined effect is infinitely greater than the mere
sum of their evidences ; and accordingly, in vir-
tue at once of their independence and coincidence,
it tells with all the force of moral certainty,
directly on the points in which all agree, indi-
rectly even on the points on which each bears its
separate testimony. In this respect the supreme
knowledge of God stands in the closest analogy
to all those leading forms of knowledge, specula-
tive and moral, by which our human life is
106 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT:
guided and ruled. But we maintain, lastly,
that this Induction of the human soul, striving
up towards Heaven, is met by a distinct self-
revelation of God Himself stooping to earth.
For such is the belief which is suggested on the
ground of analogy, supported by the testimony
of universal tradition, and, as Christians hold,
established by the convincing power of the signs,
which lead us to the completion of such reve-
lation in the manifestation of our Lord Jesus
Christ.
This sketch it is the business of the succeeding
lectures to work in its various parts.
I. We begin by considering, in some detail,
the first of the great lines of Induction belonging
to what I would call the Theology of the Intellect.
This is the principle, technically known as the
principle of ^Etiology, or the study of the First
Cause. Our object is to consider what are the
conclusions to which it brings us — conclusions
which, in accordance with the general conditions
of human knowledge, we should expect to find
imperfect in themselves, preparing and (so to
speak) waiting for the coincidence of other lines
of thought, in order to complete what may be
imperfect, and to clear up what may involve
some ambiguity.
What is this line of thought as viewed in
CAUSATION. ]07
simple outline, keeping clear, so far as may be,
of all intricacies of detail, and all subtleties of
metaphysical controversy ? 1
Man finds himself in possession of two forms
of consciousness. He is conscious of himself by
reflection ; he is conscious of a world around him
by observation. Both these forms of conscious-
ness coexist and act continually upon one another.
Which first awakens it may seem too curious to
inquire; but I can hardly doubt that it is
the latter consciousness which (as the study of
a child's mind shows) is first brought into any-
thing like distinctness. Now, as soon as this is
done — as soon as any object is distinctly contem-
plated — the mind asks two questions, What is
it ? How comes it to be ?
The question, What is it ? comes practically
to mean, What are the qualities or properties, by
which it impresses itself on my senses or my
mind in the present ? The question, How comes
it to be ? is virtually an inquiry into its history
in the past, and its connexion with pre-existent
objects.
1 On the whole of this subject I would refer the reader
to a singularly able, though somewhat difficult, Essay " On
the Principle of Causation," by Canon Mozley, published in
" Faith and Free Thought," by the Christian Evidence
Society, in 1872.
108 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT ;
It is with this latter inquiry that we are at
present concerned. We need not, as yet, ask
how it originates. It is sufficient for us that it
is universal and inevitable. The notion, ad-
vanced in some modern systems, that we ought
to be content with the inquiry into what is —
simply tabulating and classifying our various
forms of knowledge of its actual properties and
relations — is too contradictory to this inevitable
process of the human mind to maintain itself in
any complete or ultimate system of thought.
But what is it which the mind perceives,
whether it look outward by observation, or in-
ward by reflection ?
(a). No doubt our primary perceptions are of
phenomena or events or sensations — changes in
the condition of things without or within. Now
of every event or phenomenon it is necessarily
assumed that it is connected, by the relation of
cause and effect, with events before it and after
it. Such conception appears to be a "form of
thought" which it is impossible to account for
by referring it simply to observation, experience,
and the like ; for, in fact, it is under it that all
observation and experience, which deserve the
name, actually take place. Without it they
would resolve themselves, as in an infant or an
imbecile, into a mere series of unconnected im-
CAUSATION. 109
pressions. Our sensations, indeed, can tell us
only of succession of events — antecedents and
consequents. It is in virtue of a fundamental
law of thought that, wherever we see invariable
succession, we hold at once that there is necessary
succession. The old fallacy, "Post hoc, ergo
propter hoc/'' shows at once that from mere suc-
cession we infer causal connexion ; and yet that
this connexion is something real, distinct from
the succession which may take place without it.
Hence, whatever the event be — a natural phe-
nomenon or the exhibition of human agency, a
flash of lightning, or the waving of a sword — we
infer at once that it had a cause. But whereas,
in a natural phenomenon, we can only trace the
line of Causation for a certain distance back, and
know not how much farther it may extend, we
can, in the case of human agency, arrive at a
true cause — ultimate so far as our knowledge
goes — in will ; which may act (as every day it
does act) without any motive whatever, simply
because it does will, but which in any case
acts as a conscious self-moving force. 2 Will is
certainly a true cause of action, and it is the
2 The old Greek definition (see Arist. Nic. Ethics, Book
iii. chap. 1) of t5 eKouaioy, as ov r\ apxr) eV outw el56ri, can
hardly be made clearer, or more accordant with our own
consciousness.
110 THE THEOLOGY OE THE INTELLECT:
only one which we can be said to know. Un-
doubtedly we must hold that the myriads of
human wills are under some Power, which guides
and may overrule them. We know even by ex-
perience that, while each is free in itself, the
results of human volition are subject to certain
laws/ and may be within limits foreseen even by
man. But we must still ask, what is the nature
of this Supreme Power which impresses its laws
upon human will ? Now we are perfectly familiar
with the power of one will over another — a power
quite distinct from physical necessity — acting in
three chief ways, viz. by appeal to reason and
conscience producing free conviction, by the
application of motives, and by the influence of
personal ascendancy ; and we can therefore, by
infinite extension of these results of experience,
conceive a Supreme Will guiding all other wills
by a power absolutely different from that of
physical compulsion. But while we know how
will can direct and excite force, we are not familiar
3 We must, of course, guard against the "fallacy of
averages," which, when it has proved that the results of
human actions may.be tabulated statistically, fancies that
it has discovered their cause and eliminated free will.
We may infer, no doubt, that they are under " a Law " in
the true sense — that is, an expression of the Supreme will.
But the assumption that it is a Law of the same kind as
those which rule in the physical sphere, monstrous as it
is, is yet unfortunately but too common.
CAUSATION. Ill
with the power of physical forces to create and
rule will; and therefore, since Causation of will
has to be accounted for, we recoil from the idea
of a Primal Physical Impulse, as the first mover
in the great chain of events, which constitutes
the history of the universe. Even if we are led to
believe that there was a time when the power of
created will did not exist on the earth, we have no
right from this belief to infer the non-existence
of all will as a primeval force. Our previous
argument stands firm, based alike on reason and
on experience. 4
4 This false inference is not infrequent in materialistic
argument. I venture to quote upon it a passage from the
eloquent Hunterian Oration of 1877, by Sir James Paget: —
" Now I cannot doubt that in the doctrine of the corre-
lation of physical and vital forces we are nearer to the
truth than we were in the Hunterian doctrine, which held
that life is something altogether alien and different from
other forms or methods of activity ; but to hold the corre-
lation and mutual conversion of the forces does not deter-
mine the precedence of either the one or the other. If the
vital and physical forces are mutually convertible, either
may have preceded the other ; the vital force may have
preceded the physical, although life appeared late upon
this planet, in any of the phenomena in which we can now
study it ; and even if we were to hold the possible conver-
sion of physical or vital into mental force, into conscious-
ness and will (though against this, what I believe to be my
consciousness and will are utterly repugnant), yet this
would not prove the precedence of the physical force.
" The opposite conversion can be as well or as ill traced.
112 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT:
The contemplation, then, of phenomena leads us
irresistibly to a First Cause ; and our experience,
so far as we can carry it, gives no distinct evidence
of a true cause, absolutely originating action,
except in will. The consequence is that almost
all language upon the subject, from whatever
lips it proceeds, is driven irresistibly to imply
Mental forces may have preceded physical : mind may
have existed before any of the properties of matter ; and
thus, even in the view of science, the first essence may
have been a Being willing and knowing, and the prime
source of all the forces whose operations we now trace. I
believe there is not anything in science to disprove such a
belief as this; but I doubt whether it be in the power of
science yet to determine an order of precedence amongst
the forces. I cannot imagine anything before a natural
force except a supernatural will ; and a belief of this kind
is held by untutored minds as if it were instinctive know-
ledge. For man seems naturally prone to believe that,
beyond all that there is in the world, there must be a
mind, or minds, in the likeness in which his own is created,
and with which he is in some kind of personal relation.
" But science cannot yet reach to the proof of these
things, and, until it can reach to proof, science cannot rest,
and must not rest ; but the firm and self-guiding belief
that a supernatural Will and Knowledge was, and is, and
will be, rests on the whole and manifold evidences of the
Christian faith.
" These may seem often opposed to what we believe true
in science. Then let us wait. Time — or, if not time-,
eternity — will prove that science and the Christian theo-
logy are but two sides of truth, and that both sides are as
yet only known in part."
CAUSATIOX. 113
Personality. In spite of all struggles to the
contrary, " every tongue " has to " confess to
God."
{b) But from the simple observation of
phenomena, we pass to the inference of the
existence of things and persons. How that
inference takes place we are not here concerned
to inquire. Every student of Berkeley's writings
knows how difficult it is to prove the absolute
existence of any material thing from that purely
physical observation, which can reveal only im-
pressions upon our senses, suggesting ideas to
the mind. Every one who has looked at a
stereoscope is aware how by combination of such
impressions on the eye we are induced to infer a
substance which does not exist. I believe myself
that it is from the consciousness of being,
underlying the phenomena of the little world
within, 5 that we are led to conceive of a substra-
tum underlying the phenomena of the great
world without, and where that substmium is not
5 " The operations of the mind may in some degree be
spoken of as phenomena manifesting themselves to the
internal sense or consciousness ; but they never present
themselves as a mere bundle of phenomena, but always in
reference to that self which is the ground and origin of
them We have arrived at something much more than
a mere phenomenon, viz. at a being the ground of the phe-
nomena." — Shaw "On Positivism," pp. 23. 25.
I
114 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT:
referable to living beings like ourselves, call it
Matter and Force in the abstract. The constant
tendency to personification in all such cases shows
the origin of the process. But, however the
inference takes place, it is universal. We look
upon the universe, as a reality, not in raw chaotic
material, but as a true Kosmos in form and
order, in the co -existence and correlation of all its
parts, and we ask, first whether there is a First
Cause of Nature, and, if so, of what character is
that First Cause.
II. In relation to the former inquiry, let me
here remind you (to guard against an unfor-
tunate ambiguity of the use of this word) that
by Nature we mean, or ought to mean, the sum
total of being cognisable by us, which, if we
would understand it aright (so all Science warns
us), we must consider in its entirety and its
continuity. A student of what we unfortunately
call Physical Science is a student of but one part
of Nature. Mind is as much a real thine 1 as
Matter ; 6 Will is as true a factor in the great
world of Nature, as Electricity.
6 This is the sense, for example, in which Butler uses the
word " nature " in his " Analogy." In the discussion of
the " supernatural " there is constantly an ambiguity, often
an inconsistency, in the sense given to " the natural,"
which needs the most jealous scrutiny.
CAUSATION. 115
Now, as we survey these works of Nature,
we find that they fall into certain distinct classes.
There is, first, a fundamental division, which,
as yet, no Science can cross, between the things
which have life, and the things which have not
life. At this point there comes in a new power,
entailing a partial break in the great principle
of Convertibility of Force. Life, so far as we
have yet seen, can be derived only from Life.
Then, within the realm of life, there comes
another division, between the mere vegetative
or animal life, 7 and the existence of Mind, Soul,
Intelligence — call it what you will — of which
we find rudimentary forms, gradually increasing
in perfection through the animal world of In-
stinct, and, of which we find, so far as earth is
concerned, the perfection in man, though we
believe that man is but one in a hierarchy of
7 I use this expression because (so far as merely organic
life is concerned) it appears singularly difficult to draw
any line of demarcation between the animal and vegetable
kingdom. Thus Professor Bentley in his "Manual of
Botany " (Introduction, pp. 3, 4), after pointing out general
distinctions, in respect of (a) food, (b) powers of motion, (c)
respiration, and (d) the composition of permanent tissues,
between plants and animals, is forced to conclude that
in our present state of knowledge it is, physiologically
speaking, " impossible to give a complete and perfect defi-
nition of a plant, in contradistinction to what is to be
regarded as an animal."
i %
116 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT:
intelligent beings, surrounding the throne of
God.
But here again — whatever Physiology may
teach as to the connexion of our bodily structure
with animal organizations — whatever analogies
Psychology may trace between understanding
and instinct — still between man and brute there is
a great gulf fixed, marked by the peculiar power
in man of intellectual progress, by the possession
and elaboration of language, by the capacity of
rising above the sphere of sense to contemplate
the Invisible. 8 At this point again there is a
break in the Convertibility of Force. As we can-
not see any trace of convertibility of vegetative
life into animal instinct ; so we can see still less
any vestige of power to raise instinct to the level
8 It is here, as Coleridge showed in the " Aids to Reflec-
tion" (vol. i. pp. 168—183, ed. of 1848), that the true line
is to be drawn between the Instinct, differing only in
degree from what he called the "understanding" in man,
and the Season, which is the peculiarly human faculty.
Hooker says truly, " Beasts are in sensible capacity as
ripe as men themselves, perhaps more ripe .... The soul
of man .... Lath, besides the faculty of growing to sensible
knowledge which is common unto us with beasts, a farther
ability, whereof in them is no show at all, the ability of
reaching higher than unto sensible things" (Ecc. Pol., I.
chap. vi. sects. 2, 3). The neglect of this distinction is
remarkable in the reasonings of the Darwinian school, as
to the derivation of Reason and Conscience from animal
instincts.
CAUSATION. 117
of reason, to degrade reason hopelessly to the
level of instinct. To refer life, intelligence,
reason, vaguely to unknown " potentialities of
matter" is simply to ignore lines of demarca-
tion, which to our present knowledge are im-
passable. To talk of the genius of a Newton as
latent in the light of the sun, or in some ring of
cosmical vapour, seems like tracing the poten-
tiality of a steam-engine simply to the pro-
perties of brass and iron, and the expansive
power of steam.
Now that this our formed system of Nature
had a beginning is certain, not only by reason-
ing of abstract thought, but by the discoveries
of Inductive Science. That there was a time in
our world, marked by the existence only of
elementary inorganic substance is all but cer-
tain ; that there may have been a nebulous
period, before solid or liquid forms of material
substance had their being, is highly probable.
That, at a subsequent period life made its
appearance in the world, in its various vegetable
and animal forms is again known — whether
by evolution from one monad, or by what are
awkwardly called " acts of successive creation "
we do not as yet inquire. That at a still later
time man emerged, as he is — whether again by
evolution or otherwise, we care not — is a certain
118 THE THEOLOGY OP THE INTELLECT :
thing. Hence the instinct is clearly right,
which asks of actual Nature, How it came to
be ? For it did come to be. It had a begin-
ning ; as even now we have probable indications
to show that it will have an end.
Hence it would seem that the answer to the
first inquiry is absolute. The universe had a
beginning ; it must have had a First Cause — a
Vis Greatrix of some kind or other. It is con-
tended with perfect truth, on the principle in-
dicated in the old maxim, Causa Causes Causa
Causati, that in the conception of a true cause
finality is involved, that " an infinite series of
secondary causes does not make the cause/''
which "reason requires."" As our old meta-
physicians rightly urged, ee that something must
be self-existent and the original cause of all
things will not bear much dispute."" 9
(a) But of what nature is that First Cause of
the world as we see it ? In pursuing this
inquiry it is reasonable to look first to the class
of things, of which it is easiest to give account.
We see around a certain number of things of all
kinds, which we call Works of Art ; and of these
we do actually know how they came to be what
9 See Canon Mozley's " Essay," pp. 20, 32, with his
interesting criticism on the merits of Clarke's " Demon-
stration of the Being of a God."
CAUSATION. 119
they are. In each such thing" there is the raw
material (the vXij), and the form or structure (the
elSo?) . Now how this raw material came into
being we know not ; in fact, the observation of
Science teaches that, within the range of our
knowledge, the sum total of matter is fixed, and
the sum total of physical force (if latent and active
force be taken together) is equally unchangeable.
But the form or structure — that which makes
each work of Art what it is — we do know
to be simply due to human will and intelligence,
moulding the forms of any special kind of
matter, combining various kinds of matter to-
gether, directing the play of force, calling it from
dormancy into life, or from living energy bidding
it sink back into mere potentiality again. From
the simplest manufacture of the savage to the
highest work of civilized Art — the grandest build-
ing, the noblest sculpture, the most subtle and ex-
quisite machine — the same principle is true. We
know (as we say) how it was made. It is true that
of the raw material we can give no account ; it is
with the structure that we are concerned, and
of this the true cause lies in Mind and Will.
Henceforward the fact that Mind does work upon
matter, and can evoke and direct force, is a
thing ascertained. Once ascertained, it cannot
be, and ought not to be, forg-otten. We engrave
120 THE THEOLOGY OP THE INTELLECT:
it on our memory, as we pass from this class of
things which we know to other classes more
mysterious to us. For, when we have discovered
a true cause, Science bids us take it with us in
our further investigation, refusing to imagine
new hypothetical causes, till we have tried this
and found it wanting.
Now, when from the works of Art, we turn
to the universe itself — the u works of Nature/''
in that true and general sense referred to above —
and inquire into the processes, by which in its
various parts it comes to be what it actually is,
we are struck at once by the fact that, within our
knowledge, they wear the aspect of that superim-
position on some raw material of form and struc-
ture, of which we ourselves in our measure are
capable. In what we call inorganic substances,
we find that all their infinite variety is due to
the combination of but a few elements in various
relations and proportions, under the action of a
few known physical forces ; and, moreover, by
the known existence of things of very different
properties, capable nevertheless of being resolved
into the same elements, we are driven to the
belief that, besides the laws of proportion and
structure, which we can trace, there are invisible
laws of molecular structure, by which these
differences are determined. So far knowledge
CAUSATION. 1 2 L
and probable inference go. Speculation goes
on, with more or less of arbitrary assumption/
to conjecture, that the final elements of matter
may be all of one kind, may be perhaps simply
centres of force ; and that all the endless variety
of Nature may depend on variety of structure of
one kind of matter, and on variety of manifesta-
tion of but one Force.
Still more clearly the growth of organic life
from the first simple cell is the assimilation of
elemental substance under the law of some in-
herent structure. So it is in the growth of the
rich, endless variety of vegetation from the
simple food of the air, the moisture, and the
soil. So it is in the still more wonderful growth
of animal life by the absorption of substances,
less rudimentary indeed, but still in themselves
simple enough. Watch the marvellous process
from the simple original protoplasm. See how
1 We smile at the arbitrary inference of the old Greek
philosophy, that the heavenly bodies must move in circles,
because the works of Nature are perfect and "the circle
is the most perfect figure." But, whenever the mind,
passing from the solid ground of experience in physical
subjects, delights in abstruse speculations as to the
origin of things, we constantly find metaphysical assump-
tions of the same kind. There are " idols of the cave "
everywhere. Mind will assert itself, perhaps abnormally,
even while it professes to sit at the feet of Physical Power.
122 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT :
infinite variety of structure developes, we know
not how or why, from what seems the same germ
of life, and on what is apparently the same kind of
assimilated food. The creative force of Nature
here is, again in a far higher and subtler per-
fection, the addition to elemental matter of form
and structure.
Pass next to the realm of mind. Is not the
same law here manifest ? All the fabric of
human knowledge and morality is surely the
assimilation, under the mental structure, which
Kant calls the " forms of thought/' of food
derived from observation, from teaching, from in-
stinctive self-perception. It is so in each several
mind, as the Socratic process of interrogation
so vividly shows. 2 It is so in the inherited
knowledge of the race, gradually assimilating
fresh food in each generation, and so growing
from the simple instinctive notions of the savage
to the complicated knowledge of high civiliza-
tion. We note, moreover, here also that there are
infinite variations of latent mental structure —
individual, hereditary, national — and that the
same mental and moral food is assimilated
2 See, for example, the famous example in the " Menon,"
where Socrates, by judicious questions, draws from an
ignorant but intelligent slave-boy the formal conclusion
of a geometrical proposition.
CAUSATION. 123
accordingly in different degrees and different
directions ; so that from precisely the same cir-
cumstances, natural and artificial, different forms
of humanity actually grow up.
Hence, in respect of all those works of Nature,
there is within our knowledge a distinct ana-
logy between them and the works of Art. In
fact, the whole process is the addition to matter
or life or mind of form and structure. The
analogy is not broken, because, in the works of
Nature, this addition is made by processes to us
unknown, and with a subtlety and beauty, which
we can but clumsily imitate. And it is drawn
closer by the fact that we ourselves, acting by in-
telligence and will, can actually, in different de-
grees, imitate and co-operate with these natural
processes. Thus, for example, we can analyse
inorganic substances, and then recombine them
again with a known and predetermined effect.
We study physical forces, mechanical, chemical,
electrical ; and, again, we can combine them, and
subject them to certain forms and structures of
our own making, that they may serve our will.
In less degree, but in very real degree, we can act
upon organic life. There is hardly a vegetable
product of the earth, which man cannot culti-
vate, and by cultivation modify, and, so far as
human purposes and conceptions go, improve in
124 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT:
fruitfulness or beauty. In still less degree, but
yet most truly, we can modify the struc-
tures and peculiar capacities of animal life.
The very theory of evolution of species was sug-
gested by the power of selection exercised by
man. Lastly, even in the human soul itself, we -
know how, by the familiar but most mysterious
power of habit in ourselves, we can make the
deliberate act of to-day modify the mental and
moral structure of to-morrow. We know how,
by bringing what we call educating influences
to bear on others, we can determine within
limits the growth of the human soul in them.
All this power of co-operation by the action of
the human mind certainly makes the analogy
between the works of Art and the works of
Nature, I will not say more real, but certainly
more vivid and practical.
What is the inference which men naturally
draw, and historically have drawn ?
(b) The first distinction which occurs to them
is between the creation of the form and struc-
ture and the creation of the raw sub-stratum of
being, — of matter, of life, of mind.
As to the first, they have seen that the action
of mind and will in man is a true efficient
causc — the only such cause actually known — ■
undoubtedly producing effects similar to the
CAUSATION. 12<
works of Nature, capable of actually co-operating
within limits with the forces which produce
them. As a well-known philosopher (Sir John
Herschell) has said, " These works of Nature
bear all the appearance of ( manufactured arti-
cles/ " Men have drawn, therefore, in all ages
the inference that this cause — the operation of
mind — is a true and a sufficient cause ; they
have refused to put it aside for any other
which is merely supposed. They have not been
alarmed or disquieted by foolish sarcasms
against the notion of a "manufacturing God;"
for they know that similarity does not exclude
a transcendant superiority, removing Him far
away from all the associations which can give
any show of plausibility to such sarcasm.
This unvarying and determined inference has
surely a philosophical propriety and a definite-
ness of idea, which vague phrases of a Vis
Creatrix Nature, of unknown potentialities, even
of Evolution, if it be taken to describe a cause and
not a mode of formation, ought not to displace.
But what of the substance itself? Here
unquestionably analogy fails, and we enter a
more mysterious region. What shall we say
here ?
First (again to use an old phrase) man is the
" microcosm' 1 ' — a little world in himself — and
126 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT
any true theory of the great world must ac-
count for all that is contained in man. For in
man there is the material composition, easily
analysed into its parts — so much phosphorus, so
much iron, so much carbon, and the like —
analogous to the lowest inorganic kingdom of
the universe. There is the lower vegetative
or animal life, with its marvellous structure and
assimilating power, uniting him in the closest
bonds to the organic world. There is something
corresponding to the animal instincts, belonging
to that brute creation to which man is phy-
siologically linked with a startling closeness —
instincts which in those brute creatures he has
power, within limits, to modify and enhance.
But there is undoubtedly something more.
Will, reason, conscience are distinct realities,
which, though for their physical exercise they
may require physical means, though, even for
their own excitation, they may need to use the
animal life and structure, fall certainly under a
wholly different law of Causation. Who can
study the relation of mind to body without
seeing that in the complex being of man two
wholly different orders of influence act — the one
by physical contact, the other by the impres-
sion of ideas? For example, idiocy, temporary
or permanent, is (we may suppose) accompanied
CAUSATION. 127
by some particular physical condition of the
brain. But who does not know that this con-
dition of the brain may be produced either
by causes within the range of physical causation,
such as a mechanical blow, or the physiological
absorption of disease or poison (both being dif-
ferent forms of physical power), or by a wholly
mental cause — some great joy or sorrow acting,
not by contact, but by mental cognition, pre-
sented to, and acting upon, not the physical con-
stitution, but the mind alone ? Mind, as mind,
is a distinct power, lying outside the chain of
Physical Causation. As such, it must be ac-
counted for in any theory of this world's origin.
III. Now since, this being the case, matter
and force, life and mind, have all to be ac-
counted for in any theory of the First Cause —
what theories are presented to us ? The First
Cause must be either purely material, purely
spiritual, or (in some way) compact of both.
Let us look these various answers in the
face.
(a) Pure Materialism, holding matter alone
to be original, and mind either a development
from it, or possibly a mere consequence of its
organization — just as the calling out of an
electric current is the consequence of the juxta-
position of certain material substances — fails, in
128 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT:
relation both to a priori, idea and a posteriori
experience, to give an adequate account of the
world as it actually is. For the former con-
ception of a development of mind from matter 3
not only shocks all our consciousness of radical
difference between the mental and physical
powers, but is shattered against the conclusion,
derived from all our experience, so far as it has
yet gone, that not even life can be developed
from inorganic force, far less mind developed
from vegetative life. The other theory (at least
as old as Plato)/ that mind is a consequence of
material organization, at once contradicts that
inner consciousness of a personal and inde-
pendent being, which is our simplest and most
ultimate consciousness; and again fails abso-
lutely to account for the experience of that
line of Causation above alluded to, in which
3 Development, like most words of the kind, is often
used with a latent reference to some external developing
power. Now, of course, if there be a creative mind ruling
and guiding this development, we can conceive how the
created mind might be thus developed. But then the
true cause is in the creating mind, not in the matter.
4 See the " Phaedo," chaps. 41 — 43, where the hypothesis
that the soul is a kind of ap/xovla is considered. Socrates
meets the hypothesis by the consciousness of the power of
the soul over the body, and the fact that the soul itself is
capable of having harmony or discord superinduced upou
its objective existence.
CAUSATION. 129
mind, through the simple conception of ideas,
so acts upon the body as to produce in it often
functional, sometimes organic changes. The
experience of ages has but strengthened inde-
finitely the protest of the dying Socrates against
the notion that mind, which rules by a spiritual
right, is but a function of the very matter which
it thus rules.
Such pure Materialism accordingly seems in-
capable of maintaining any real empire over
human thought. Whenever it endeavours to
attain any real dominion, it glides inevitably
into Pantheism. Attributing to matter " capa-
city of self-motion," " actual sense and percep-
tion," as older Materialists put it, or " unknown
potentialities" of development, in the vaguer
language of modern days, it simply " makes
matter cease to be matter and become mind." 5
It breaks down, tacitly or avowedly, the dis-
tinctions established by daily experience, and
5 See Canon Mozley's " Essay," pp. 36, 37, with the quo-
tations there given from Hobbes and Tyndall. Mr. Thorn-
ton (in his " Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common- Sense
Metaphysics," p. 226,) puts the alternative plainly —
" Either this matter must, whether under superior direction
or not, have organized itself, or it must have been organized
by some other agency." " If it organized itself, it cannot
have been inert or lifeless, but must have been active and
animate, and capable of volition."
K
130 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT :
escapes from the difficulty of an untenable claim
by the process of presenting* a new reality under
an old name. No theory of a First Cause of
the world as it is can exclude original mind.
After all, the old question of the Psalmist re-
curs. The power " which planted the ear, shall
it not hear?" The power which created the
mind, shall it not think? Nothing is clearer
within the range of our experience than that the
higher power of mind constantly assumes domi-
nion over the lower powers of physical force and
life, and moulds them to its will. Why should
we arbitrarily suppose that, when we pass the
border, this law is immediately reversed ?
(b) But then there are two different relations
of mind to matter actually existing. There is the
relation in which the human mind stands to the
body with which it is linked, acting upon it,
being reacted upon by it. There is the relation
in which the human mind stands to extraneous
matter and force, acting upon them to produce
results distinctly analogous to the works of
Nature. Which of these relations shall we take
as the type of the operation of mind in the great
world without ?
The answer which accepts the first, is
the answer of Pantheism — the vague con-
ception of some Divine mind diffused through
CAUSATION. 131
the whole universe, as the soul to which
the universe is the body, manifesting emana-
tions from itself in what we call created minds,
manifesting its derived power in what we
call physical phenomena. 6 It is an answer,
which from the beginning has expressed itself,
not, indeed, in forms of thought practically and
widely predominant, but in vague, half-philo-
sophic, half-poetic ideas, colouring other forms
of thought while they live, and superseding
them when they lose vitality and power.
I hardly know that even in modern days it
has advanced far beyond that Pythagorean
expression of itself which we find in the famous
lines of Virgil : —
" Principio caelum ac terras, camposque liquentes,
Lucentemque globum Lunae, Titaniaque astra,
Spiritus intus alit, totamque infusa per artus
Mens agitat molem, et magno se corpore miscet.
Inde hominum pecudumque genus, vitseque volantum,
Et quas marmoreo fert monstra sub sequore pontus."
6 Pantheism has been described "as that speculative
system, which reduces all existence, mental and material, to
phenomenal modifications of one Eternal self-existing Sub-
stance, which is called by the name of God." See article
"Pantheism," in " Cyclopaedia Britannica," by John Downes,
M.A. (quoted in an interesting article on " Pantheism—
from the Vedas to Spinoza," in Church Quarterly Review,
No. VII.).
K 2
132 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT :
" Deura namque ire per omnes
Terrasque tractusque maris coelumque profundum ;
Hinc pecudes, armenta, viros, genus omne ferarum,
Quemque sibi tenues nascentem arcessere vitas j
Scilicet huo reddi deinde ac resoluta referri
Omnia, neo morti esse locum." 1
It has been truly remarked that Pantheistic-
speculation often hovers on the verge of a true
Theism. If it regards the One Eternal Sub-
stance as Spirit, and believes its power unex-
hausted in the creation of the actual universe,
it approaches at least, to that conception of an
Eternal Mind above Nature, which must ulti-
mately assume the character of a true Per-
sonality ; and it undoubtedly does not make the
creature consubstantial with the Creator. This
mode of thought is perhaps not sufficiently
thorough and self-consistent to maintain itself
in the abstract. But it frequently runs through
many half-poetical representations of " the
plastic force of nature," " the potentialities of
matter," and the like, which seem rather to
veil God from conscious thought, than formally
to deny Him. It is well that such views
should be tested. If they do not identify the
creature with the Creator, or suppose God to be
7 Virg. ^3n. vi. 724—729 ; Georg. iv. 221—225. It will
be observed how entirely all division between man and
bruto is broken down under this Pantheistic theory.
CAUSATION. 133
no greater than His visible works, they are not
strictly Pantheistic, and may easily lead up to
higher and truer belief in God.
But for purposes of criticism we must exclude
these transitional forms of thought, and con-
sider Pantheism in its strictest and completest
sense as making the relation of God to the
universe the same as the relation of the soul to
the body.
This places it in direct contrast with the
answer of a true Theism, accepting the other
relation of mind to matter, and so rising to
the belief in a Personal God, of whose hand the
whole universe is the work.
(c) True, that as no observation tells of the
absolute creation of matter or of force, and as in
our experience the action of mind can mani-
fest itself only through physical means, that
answer is perplexed by doubt as to the relation
of a supposed physical substratum to the Eternal
Mind. Hence, as we have seen, in many forms
of thought, there is the conception of a Dualism,
a coexistence of an Eternal Matter and an
Eternal Mind ; and in this case almost necessarily
the omnipotence of the creating Mind is sup-
posed to be limited by some intractability of
matter, to which all physical imperfection and
suffering, and even moral evil, are referred.
134 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT:
The Demiurgus — the great workmaster in the
old Gnostic theories, and in some modern re-
vivals of them — is a kind of God, but a God
imperfect either in power or in wisdom.
But this Dualism sins against the unity and
finality which belongs to the very idea of
Cause. It is therefore but a temporary po-
sition. Unless mind and matter be but one
ultimate being, the imperious question forces
itself on the mind, Which was the true original ?
Did Matter originate Mind ? Did Mind origi-
nate Matter ? Either we have to fall back on
the pure Materialism, to the fatal difficulties of
which we have already referred, or we must
accept a pure Theism, unclogged by any ma-
terial limitations.
(cl) If, then, we will believe in a true God, we
must face the belief in the creation of matter.
Inconceivable indeed it is how this can be, be-
cause it transcends our whole experience, but
surely not inconceivable that it may be. If we
are driven to a theory, we may even embrace
that conception at which Berkleyanism hints, —
that matter has no objective existence, and that
what we call material phenomena are simply
impressions on our minds made by the Eternal
Mind. 8 It may, indeed, be granted that this is
8 See a vigorous and interesting development of a theory
CAUSATION. 135
a theory difficult to grasp definitely, possibly
liable to merge itself in some of the half-formed
developments of spiritual Pantheism to which
I have already referred. Yet surely it is infi-
nitely more reasonable than the theories of pure
Materialism or materialistic Pantheism. But,
after all, without venturing on any theory, if we
are brought face to face with the alternative be-
tween original Mind and original Matter, our
consciousness of the power of mind to mould and
direct material forces, and to make each material
thing what it is by structure and organization,
makes it not difficult to take the last great step ;
and, passing beyond the limits of experience (as
in all ultimate theories we must pass), to refer the
crude v\rj of the Universe to the same origin as
the informing etSo?.
It seems to me therefore that we may dismiss
both Pure Materialism and that Semi-Mate-
rialism which these dualistic theories involve.
The final antagonism is between the grand theory
of Pantheism and the pure Theism which
declares not only that "the Earth was with-
out form and void" till the moulding hand
of the Creator passed over it, but also that " in
of this kind in Mr. Thornton's " Old- Fashioned Ethics and
Common-Sense Metaphysics," chap, iv., on " Huxleyism."
136 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT:
the beginning God created out of nothing the
Heaven and the Earth."
V. Such is the result of this line of Induc-
tion. The two alternatives present themselves
— the Mind in Nature of the Pantheist — the
Mind over Nature, as well as in Nature, of the .
believer in God. How fare these alternatives
when brought face to face ? Even if we con-
fine ourselves to this line of thought, pro-
vided that in our Induction we turn our eyes
inward, and recognise the reality of the facts of
our own consciousness, I can hardly think that
the strife between them is left quite undeter-
mined. The consciousness of will and therefore
of personality in ourselves is (as I have already
urged) the surest of all forms of consciousness.
It presents itself to us as a true cause of action,
incapable of being resolved into any of the ex-
ternal influences which coexist with it. If we
are deceived in believing that we have power to
originate action by will — if it be but to move
the finger this way or that — then all conscious-
ness whatever is a delusion, and all reasoning
upon it an absurdity. But this consciousness of
personality in us, while it accepts gladly the
belief in a Personal God over us and in us, " in
whom we live and move and have our being,"
within the limits of whose Law our freedom
CAUSATION. 137
acts, under the influence of whose Spirit our will
moves, yet repudiates as absolutely the concep-
tion of true Pantheism, that we have really no
individuality, no personality — that what we fancy
to be an individual spiritual self, is at most but
an emanation shot out from the pervading Spirit,
assuming for a time this inexplicable conscious-
ness, not only of spiritual being, but of in-
dividuality, but destined as its highest wis-
dom to unlearn (with the Buddhist) its most
certain intuition, and as its highest happiness to
be absorbed again, and as an individual to cease
to be. I do not at present speak of the argu-
ment from the moral sense of conscience, which
absolutely repudiates the idea (maintained by
all consistent Pantheism) that " evil' is a lower
form of good/' because attaching to the Divine
Being itself, and the moral sense of love, which
utterly refuses to fix on anything but true
personality. I consider only the principle of
Causation in itself. Even then, I urge, that,
so long as the mind devotes itself entirely to the
great world without, either of inanimate things,
or even of persons, considered en masse as
swayed by quasi-physical laws, the ideas of
Pantheism may prevail, alike in the cold reason-
ings of Science, and in the glowing mysticism of
Poetry. But when it turns back upon itself,
138 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT :
realizing its own actual power to will, to think,
to feel — especially in these great crises of life,
which show how this individuality can stand
against physical force, against the voice of man,
even against a Law which speaks in the name
of God — -then these Pantheistic dreams vanish
like the visions of the night at the first glance
of day. We feel a true personality in ourselves ;
to a true Person alone can we bow.
Therefore, even if we had no other line of
Natural Theology on which to dwell, I could not
wonder that (as I said in my first Lecture) the
thought of man, expressed in all the religions
of the universe, and implied in all its languages,
has chosen the alternative of Theism; and,
amidst all confusions and perversions, has still
held firmly to the Personal God.
But my contention is that we ought not to
stop here — that, contemporaneously with this
line of thought, the conception of Design, on
which we are next to dwell, the clear witness of
Conscience, the glowing enthusiasm of Love,
must be present to our minds ; and that by their
presence they not only decide the great question
of the Divine Personality, before which we are
now pausing, but go on farther still to reveal to
us, step by step, the attributes of the Living God.
Of this I hope to speak hereafter. Meanwhile
CAUSATION. 139
I would urge you to let your minds range back
in thought to the first origin of this great
Universe of Matter and of Spiritual Being.
Only, while as they move through all this wide
and mysterious region of thought, let them keep
fast hold of consciousness of the self which
surveys it. Call up in succession all the
various theories of Pantheistic self-evolving,
self-distributing life, which are presented in the
name of science. Thank those who present
them for teaching — what the older Deists and
some of the older defenders of Christianity too
little regarded — the truth that this world is not a
mere machine, once created, once started, and
then left to work, with perhaps occasional
interferences from the hand that made it ; but
that the Vis Creatrix is ever present and active,
and thatthe Divine Power is inseparable from any
particle of its composition and from any moment
of life. But yet, if you would have a solid
intelligible ground of thought, on which both
the world without, and the little world with-
in, may rest — ask yourselves whether anything
has ever yet been found to take the place of the
old simple teaching, which tells how " in the
beginning God " — the God who is our Father —
" created the heavens and the earth ; " and then
under the form of the six days' creation, brings
140 THEOLOGY OF INTELLECT : CAUSATION.
home to us, step by step, the conviction, that in
every fresh development of matter and force, of
physical and spiritual life, His Providence and
His Spirit rule. How far the Christian doctrine
is from the bare Deistic conception, we know by
the words of Him, who declared, " My Father-
worketh up to this very moment " in the outer
sphere of Providence; and by the Apostolic
teaching, which, in relation to the inner sphere
of spirit, confesses that " in Him we live and
move and have our being." But still, while
all theories of the universe must hold one
part of the text, that "the things which are
seen" — the to ftXeTrofjievov, the whole visible
system — came not into being out of the things
which do appear, it is the distinctive charac-
teristic of the true faith of Theism — which has
issues both of thought and life of unspeakable
moment — that " the worlds were framed," not
by the self-evolution of a mere " Soul of the
Universe," but " by the word " of a living Per-
sonal God.
LECTURE V.
THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT :
THE EVIDENCE OF DESIGN.
I. — THE RELATION OF TELEOLOGY TO ETIOLOGY.
II. — THE ARGUMENT OF DESIGN APPLIED TO THE UNIVERSE
AS A WHOLE. ITS POWER TO SUPPLY A GROUND OF
UNITY BETWEEN THE VARIOUS KINGDOMS, AND THE
WANT OF ANY ADEQUATE SUBSTITUTE FOR IT.
III.— THE ARGUMENT APPLIED TO SPECIAL PORTIONS OF THE
UNIVERSE. THE RELATION OF THE KINGDOM OF
ORGANIC LIFE TO THE KINGDOMS OF INORGANIC
FORCE AND OF MIND. -THE TRUE MEANING OF CON-
TRIVANCE AS " DESIGN UNDER LAW."
IV. — THE BEARING OF THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION ON TELE-
OLOGY, TO MODIFY, NOT TO DESTROY IT.
THE THREE SUCCESSIVE FORMS OF TELEOGICAL
CONCEPTION.
THE EXISTENCE OF A LAW TEMPERING " THE
STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE."
V.— THE OBJECTIONS FROM WASTE AND SUFFERING.
VI. — THE BEARING OF TELEOLOGY ON THE GREAT ALTER-
NATIVE OF THEISM AND PANTHEISM.
And God saw everything that He had made, an' 1 , behold,
it was very good." — Gen. i. 31.
142 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT :
The sketch of the first great line of the Theo-
logy of the Intellect has now been drawn, in
our argument as to the existence and the nature
of the First Cause. In this Induction certain
points are clear. First, it is historically certain
that this our universe, in its organization and
structure, came into being in time, and there-
fore had a cause. Next, looking at its various
kingdoms — first of physical force and matter,
next, of animal life, and, lastly, of mind — -and
examining in each the processes by which it
comes to be what it is, we find them to be
processes bearing a very distinct analogy to
the production of the works of Art, of which we
actually know that it is due to the addition to
raw material of form or structure dictated by
human intelligence and will. Lastly, in con-
templating the First Cause of the substance of
the universe, we see that it must be such to
account both for matter and for mind, and that
no forms of Materialism supply such a cause.
So far our path is clear. But now from the
two relations of Mind and Matter actually ex-
isting, there arise in this line of thought two
theories of the First Cause — the Pantheistic idea
of an Anima Mundi, an eternal compact of Mind
and Matter, and the faith of a true Theism,
acknowledging (after, perhaps, a brief halt in
THE EVIDENCE OP DESIGN. 143
some form of Dualism) a sole Eternal Mind, the
Creator, as well as the moulder and director, of
Heaven and Earth. These two answers stand face
to face. All less decisive and ultimate theories
are silenced in the presence of their conflict.
Now in testing their claims to our allegiance,
it is impossible to ignore the fact that against
the theory of Pantheism (even in the examina-
tion of Causation alone) the sense of individual
personality in man protests with such power,
that it has seldom or never really dominated
the practical belief of the mass of men. But yet,
if we confine ourselves to this line of thought,
the strife might, perhaps, seem to be at best
partially decided. It is my present object to lead
you to consider what witness Can be gained from
other quarters, to supply imperfection and to de-
termine ambiguity.
With this view I would next seek to trace the
outline of the second branch of the Theology of
the Intellect, in the study of Teleology — in the
study, that is, of the evidence in Nature of
Design and Purpose. The great ideas involved
in it are expressed in the words of the text,
recurring at each of the great epochs of crea-
tion, " God beheld all that He had made/'' and,
because it fulfilled His Divine purpose, "it was
very good.""
144 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT :
I. It is plain that this line of thought is
closely connected with the last. If we conceive
any action of Mind as a First Cause in Creation,
it is difficult, if not impossible, to avoid inferring
at once the existence of purpose. It is true, that
in our own experience the mind may act arbi-.
trarily, without any purpose except the assertion
of will; it may act capriciously, that is, by
unconnected and temporary impulses of pur-
pose ; it may act blindly, producing 1 indeed
effects, but not foreseeing what these effects
shall be. It is possible in the abstract to
imagine mental action without any great per-
vading purpose. But all these phases of action
are, except in things absolutely trivial, proofs
of mental weakness, which we cannot attribute
to a power by hypothesis perfect and supreme.
It is not the Theist who talks of "freaks/'
and " blunders " of Nature. Hence, if we con-
ceive an original Mind we mostly infer some
original purpose. But certainly the converse is
true. If we discern a glimpse of purpose, we
infer unhesitatingly the existence of mind.
Thus even speculators, who ignore or deny
creative mind, glide into language implying it,
whenever they speak, however vaguely, of con-
trivance or design. If they would avoid the
natural inference, they urge that the discernment
THE EVIDENCE OF DESIGN. 145
of purpose is a delusion, mistaking 1 our own sub-
jective forms of thought for objective reality,
which has impressed itself on the structure of
language. For, if purpose be really traceable, the
denial of a creative mind is impossible.
It follows, therefore, that the study of Teleo-
logy, examining the signs of Design in Creation
— considered (as it may well be) independently
of the investigation of original Causation — must
bear very closely on the line of thought already
followed ; and, if it yields any fruit at all, may
well be expected to correct and to elucidate the
conclusions drawn from it.
This study appears to have two methods of
application; first, to the universe as a whole;
next, to certain parts, in which Design has its
most apparent field of exercise.
II. Let us glance, first, at the universe as a
whole, in those closely related but distinct spheres
of Being, of which we have already spoken. We
have to contemplate (it will be remembered)
first, the inorganic world of matter and force,
the framework of the universe, actually formed
in times anterior to all else. We trace, next,
the introduction into this world of the great force
of " organic" life, —vegetative or animal life —
so-called from its close connexion with inherent
structure. We pass on, thirdly, to the new crea-
L
146 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT :
tion of Mind in its lower rudimentary forms in
the brute creatures, as confined within the sphere
of sensation. We end at last, with the forma-
tion of Mind in Humanity, as distinct from all
other mind in its power to contemplate the In-
visible, and in the wonderful results which follow
from that power.
Now, as we have already seen, at each of
these divisions there is an apparent break in that
great law of the absolute convertibility of force,
which runs like a thread of physical continuity
through each kingdom. Life cannot, so far as
we know, be produced from any of the forces
which rule the inorganic world. Mind, even
of the lower types, cannot be developed out of the
mere vegetative life. Instinct cannot rise into
reason, or reason sink into mere instinct.
The convertibility of force, indeed, remains
(so to speak) available in one direction. For in
each case the new power introduced has to use
the pre-existent forces, in order to exercise its
own energy. Life is dependent on the
assimilation of material food, and on certain
conditions of physical force; mind must act
through an animal organisation, and in every
action affects that organisation, and is affected
by it. But there is no reciprocation. The new
power h really new, incapable of production from
THE EVIDENCE OF DESIGN. 147
» — — ~~ ~ ~
the old. Therefore, if we look at the universe
purely in the connexion of cause and effect, there
are what seem to us as breaks, utterly mysterious,
in the great Unity of Being. Those breaks must
somehow be bridged over. Both theory and ex-
perience declare it absolutely impossible to con-
sider the universe except as a whole. The Kosmos
is one empire, not a mere juxtaposition of
separate provinces. As yet, there is one concep-
tion, which bridges them solidly over, — the con-
ception of design. In spite of much bold specu-
lation, hanging in the air, there is no other.
That the conception of Design supplies this
unity it is impossible to doubt. There is a
perfect simplicity and intelligibility in the idea
of a purpose in the eternal Mind, running
through creation as a whole ; by which, first,
the inorganic world was formed, and then,
when it was fit to sustain organic life, that life
was introduced ; by which, next, the vegetation,
clothing the bare inorganic framework with new
richness and beauty, was made to serve for the
sustenance of animal life, involving the existence
of rudimentary forms of mind ; by which, lastly,
man was introduced into a world inorganic,
vegetative, animate, fitted to be the scene of
his higher spiritual being. Grant the existence
of creative power — grant the actual unity of
L 2
148 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT :
creation as it now exists, and the fact that its
lower spheres of existence subserve the higher —
then the conception of this fore-determined order
of Creation assumes at once the highest pro-
bability. Yet this is not all. For not only is
this a belief, and so far as we know the only
belief which gives any probable theory of unity
to the great system of being ; but the purpose of
an intelligent will is known by experience to be
a vera causa, of which we actually see every day
that it can produce, in our little sphere of
capacity, a similar order of results. In that
" fellow- working with God/' by which man
aids in the cultivation and peopling of the
world, this succession of the inorganic, the
vegetative, the animal, and the human is actually
repeated. That at every point, from man's de-
ficiency in creative power, some fresh germ has
to be sought for, makes no essential difference in
the reality of this operation of human design.
Hence both theory and experience show that we
have in the supposition of a Divine purpose a
true and efficient cause. Reason can hardly
allow us to put it aside, till some adequate sub-
stitute for it be found.
What substitute has been offered us as yet ?
There has been an attempt to obliterate the
line of demarcation between the inorganic and
THE EVIDENCE OF DESIGN. 149
organic kingdoms, by theories of what is called
Ahiogenesis, 1 of the production of life from
lifeless matter. But these theories, both in their
early crude forms, and their more elaborate
modern developments, have been, as yet, discredi-
ted utterly by the best scientific investigation.
They are theories and nothing more. 2 Then,
putting them aside, scientific teaching from high
places has offered us a notion (confessed to be
" wild ""), of the introduction of organic life on the
earth by the fall of some meteoric body, charged
with the germs of such life from an unknown
world, in which (by the way), unless it be wholly
1 The name is now, I suppose, established ; but surely
it ought to be Azoogenesis.
2 In the " Belfast Address " Professor Tyndall says,
" Those to whom I refer as having studied the question,
believing the evidence in favour of spontaneous generation
to be vitiated by error, cannot accept it. . . . They frankly
admit their inability to point to any satisfactory proof."
It is significant that he says in the preceding page, " By
an intellectual necessity I cross the boundary of the Expe-
rimental evidence, and discern in the Matter, which we in
ignorance of its latent powers, and notwithstanding our
professed reverence for its Creator, have covered with
opprobrium, the promise and potency of intellectual life."
What "opprobrium" there is in supposing matter to be
incapable of self-motion, and what want of reverence to
the Creator is implied in so doing, it is hard to imagine. But
we deny the "intellectual necessity," which we think that
the Professor has created for himself, and hesitate to
accept his unverified discernment.
150 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT :
compact of organic life, abiogenesis must be
possible, or else the difficulty is but shifted from
our planet to the mysterious shores of the other. 3
3 See Sir W. Thomson's Address at Edinburgh in 1871
(p. 104 in the " Official Keport ") : — " Did grass and trees
and flowers spring into existence in all the fulness of ripe
"beauty by a fiat of Creative power ? or did vegetation
from seed sown spread and multiply over the whole earth ?
... If a probable solution consistent with the ordinary
course of nature can be found, we must not invent an
abnormal Act of Creative Power. . . . Because we all con-
fidently believe that there have been from time imme-
morial many worlds of life besides our own, we must
regard it as probable in the highest degree that there are
countless seed -bearing meteoric stones moving through
space. . . . One such stone falling on the earth might, by
what we blindly call natural causes, lead to its becoming
covered with vegetation. . . . The hypothesis that life
originated on this earth thx-ough moss-grown fragments
from the remains of another world may seem wild and
visionary; all I maintain is, that it is not unscientific."
On this passage I would venture to remark, first, that the
opening antithesis is at least questionable, for the " creative
hypothesis" does not exclude the belief of gradual develop-
ment from seed, or seeds, originally sown ; next, that the
meteoric hypothesis, even if true, simply puts back and
does not solve the problem ; and, lastly, that it is put
forth without any corroborative experimental evidence,
and that even the " confident belief" in other worlds of
life cannot aspire to anything much higher than bare pro-
bability. But Sir W. Thomson's hypothesis is happily con-
sistent with a profound belief in a true Creator of the
Universe. " Overwhelmingly strong proofs of intelligent
and benevolent Design lie all around us ; and if ever per-
plexities, whether metaphysical or scientific, turn U3 away
THE EVIDENCE OF DESIGN. 151
There has been an attempt, again, to ob-
literate the other line of demarcation between
the animal and the human creation, not only by-
emphasizing the close connexion (with but
trivial marks of differentiation), between the
bodily organisation of both, but by deriving
man's spiritual nature from brute instincts, as
if no difference of kind existed between those
instincts and the abstract powers of mind.
Against the principles of true Psychology, 4 and
without a vestige of historical evidence, the
human pedigree is traced, through links which
cannot be found, to a race of ancestral apes.
But no extent of scientific learning, no grasp of
speculative ability, have given even probability
to a theory, compared with which meta-
physical cobwebs are as chains of adamant. 5
from them for a time, they come back to us with irresistible
force, showing to us through Nature the influence of a free
will, and teaching us that all living beings depend on one
ever-acting Creator and Ruler."
* It is no disrespect to Mr. Darwin to say that in his
"Descent of Man" the psychology is as weak as the
physiology is strong. The great fundamental distinction
is ignored, between the power of abstract idea, on which
all human progress depends, and the power of perception
and deduction within the realm of sense, which is common
to us with the brutes.
5 I refer here only to ideas of development ignoring a
Creative Mind ruling such development. Under the hypo-
thesis of a Supreme mind, development is simply a mode
lo2 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT:
It is impossible not to honour the scientific
instinct, which thus longs and labours for
unity. It has already been rewarded by rich
fruits of knowledge gathered on the way ; it is
far from impossible that in its own lines of
thought it may find links of connexion, as yet
undiscovered and inconceivable. If it should
do so, I cannot see that the belief in Creative
Design would be in any sense disproved in
principle, though certainly some of its most
striking evidences to us might be obscured.
Suppose that abiogenesis were proved, suppose
that the ' missing links ' between man and
brute were discovered. Still the question would
remain, as to the Law or principle under which
this "unbroken progress took place. Still the
discovery, perhaps within limits the imitation,
of the process would be the privilege of the
created mind of man, as man. Would it not
still be reasonable to refer the process itself to a
Mind creating or sustaining all things; even
though we had lost some obvious signs of its
presence ? Just so the belief in God's moral
government of the world, is strengthened by the
belief in miracles, distinctly manifesting a moral
purpose ; yet it does not depend absolutely
of creation, which certainly appears to be extensively
realized in the natural system.
THE EVIDENCE OF DESIGN. 153
upon them. But in the meanwhile, why should
we relinquish for all but desperate theories, the
faith in what is undoubtedly a real and adequate
cause for the order of creation, or driven from
them, fall back on a needless confession of a
wilful ignorance, delighting in the phrase " un-
known and unknowable/'' as if it literally
accepted the old proverb, " Omne ignotum pro
magnified " ?
Tt seems reasonable that the consideration of
Design should be thus looked upon in its rela-
tion to the sum of Being as a whole, before
we proceed to consider it in any one of the
subordinate kingdoms. If it show itself at what
seem to us to be a great break in the line
of Physical Continuity, we cannot but infer
its pervading presence elsewhere; just as we
infer the continuity of an electric current, if it
heats platinum, or ignites gunpowder, at the
points where the wire along which it moves is
broken. There is a certain breadth and sim-
plicity in the recognition of Design as needful
to the very unity of the Kosmos, which has a
power to convince, quite independent of any
perplexity arising from intricacies of detail.
When we pass to examine the subordinate
kingdoms separately, we carry with us the
conviction of the existence of Design in the
] 54 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT :
whole,, to help us in the interpretation of signi-
ficant features of the various parts.
III. Next, when we do thus examine any-
separate kingdom, it is of much importance
still to consider each with an unceasing con-
sciousness of its connexion with the others..
Whatever design exists in Nature must con-
cern it in the right gradation of all its parts.
To discern the use of one member, we must,
while we study it in detail, still remember its
connexion with the whole body.
Thus, for example, it has been customary to
consider the kingdom of Organic Life as the
especial field for the investigation of Design,
and to stake the whole principle of Teleology on
the evidence yielded in this field, or even in one
little nook of it. Nor is it difficult to see why
men are tempted so to do. For since, as we
have already seen, the creation of structure is
the special function of Human Art, that sphere
of Nature, in which all seems to depend upon
structure, may naturally be chosen as yielding
the closest analogies to the known works of an
intelligent will.
But clearly such isolation is unsound. The
kingdom of Organic Life lies on the frontier
between the other two. There is the Inorganic
world, in which we discern Matter and Force,
THE EVIDENCE OF DESIGN. 155
acting under certain formulas of regularity, which
we call Laws. Survey that kingdom, as a whole,
in the vastness of the Sidereal system, content
with the vague general perception of it which
alone is possible to us : or turn, if you will, a closer
and minuter vision on this earth our habitation.
You discover everywhere regularity of action of
each force, and harmony in the actions of all,
producing on the mind the impressions both of
vastness and of beauty. In all this there is
nothing to interfere with the idea of a designing
and controlling Mind, and much to suggest it.
The very term " Law ■' (as I have already re-
minded you), if we consider its origin, implies
the belief in the impression on the Forces of this
Inorganic world of the dictates of a Personal
will; and it is that belief, which alone makes
the mind rest on the word Law, as if it implied
a true cause. But still under Law the power
of Design is veiled. Nature (in this narrow
sense of the word) does not indeed deny God,
but according to a well-known saying "con-
ceals Him." Force under Law, moving with
what seems a blind and ruthless regularity, -is
the veil ; and that veil, like the veil of Isis, is
seldom lifted.
But, on the other side is the world of
Mind and of its works, capable, as we know,
15G THE THEOLOGY OP THE INTELLECT :
of directing and modifying Force, even Physical
Force, at the command of Will. In that
world we discern by careful investigation the
existence of Laws, subtler, though not less
real, than Laws of physical Regularity; but
here Force under Design is the prominent and
obvious conception. In the Inorganic world
we see Law, and possibly infer Design; in the
world of Mind, we see Design, and only with
hesitation and difficulty infer Law. This power
of Design, moreover, is not only a real, but an
aggressive power. As the world grows older,
the province of Physical Law, though it may
be more clearly recognised, cannot advance ; it
is what it has always been. But the province of
Design does advance day by day, as the human
will increases its power to direct and combine
physical forces, and to educate the innate
forces of the mind. It plays each day a more
important part in the drama of the Universe,
and gradually supersedes (as has been well said)
Natural by Human Selection.
Now let us remind ourselves of what seems
too much forgotten — that whatever the Ruling
Power of the Universe may be, it must claim
both these agencies for its own. Of the Physical
Force under Law all hold this obvious; but
surely it is equally true of the action of Intelligent
THE EVIDENCE OF DESIGN. 157
Will. No doubt that action proceeds from an
infinite number of proximate centres in the
millions of free human creatures. But, still it
must be one Factor, holding its appointed place,
and swayed by the Supreme Power in the great
order of the Universe. To suppose otherwise
would be to outrage all the demands of philoso-
phic thought by denying all unity of Govern-
ment in that Universe ; and moreover it would be
to ignore the undoubted fact, that through the
free actions of men, Laws of human Nature and
Society are distinctly traceable, so that even by
a finite intelligence those actions can be fore-
seen, reckoned on, overruled to preconceived
ends. The power of design, though it be
exercised through man, must be ultimately the
gift and the attribute of the Power which made
man. By an influence, no doubt, wholly dif-
ferent in its kind from the influence which sways
physical powers, but equally real, it must be
true that, whatever the creatures do, the Creative
Power is the doer of it. If there is an unceasing
and invariable stream in the course of the phy-
sical Universe, there is a great tide, moving by an
attraction from above, which heaves up through all
the surges of the troubled sea of Humanity, and,
though each particle moves but in its own plane,
sends its impulses over the face of the waters.
158 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT :
Now if we grasp firmly the existence of these
two Powers, of Force under Law in the In-
organic realm, and of Force under Design in the
realm of Mind, before we come back to the inter-
mediate province of Organic Life, how wonder-
fully this previous knowledge throws a flood of
light on the true meaning' of the processes
which we there discover !
The first word which rises to the lips of any
one who surveys an organic structure — whatever
his belief or unbelief may be — is the word
" Contrivance/'' Now what is " Contrivance ?"
It is (as has been well shown 6 ) the union of the
two principles of Design and Law ; or, in other
words, the application of general Forces to sub-
serve deliberate purpose. It would be almost
unnecessary to say (were it not for the con-
tinual repetition of an old fallacy from most
unexpected quarters/) that its existence argues
6 See the Duke of Argyll's " Eeign of Law/' chap. iii.
" What is contrivance, but that kind of arrangement by
which the unchangeable demands of Law are met and
satisfied ? ... In Kature there is the most elaborate
machinery to accomplish purpose through the instrumen-
tality of means "
" Even Mr. Stuart Mill says, " What is meant by design ?
Contrivance ; the adaptation of means to end. But the
necessity of contrivance is a consequence of the limitation
of power" ("Essay on Theism," part ii.). The necessity
THE EVIDENCE OF DESIGN. 159
no necessary defect of power in the Contriver.
There is a fallacy of Conversion here. It is true
that if such defect exists, it is by contrivance
that it must be remedied ; but the converse is
not necessarily true. Defect necessitates con-
trivance ; contrivance need not imply defect. In
a Being of Absolute power it argues simply the
determination to preserve general Laws (with-
out which the life of His rational creatures could
hardly go on,) 8 co-existent with the deliberate
execution of Design. It belongs, as our great
English theologian Richard Hooker expresses
it, to " the Law Eternal/' 9 " the Law which
God has set Himself to do all things by."
Self-limitation of power, surely argues no defect.
It is strange that men, who constantly become
a law to themselves, limiting their will on any
may be so ; every day's experience tells us that the existence
of contrivance is not so.
8 It is notable that the declaration of physical regularity
(in Gen. ix. 21, 22) is made a part of God's "covenant"
with men ; in other words, is a revelation of His working
made for their sake, at a time when human activity and
thought needed to be guarded against the fear of over-
whelming convulsion.
9 The fact is that here again there is an ambiguity in
the word " Law." It properly means the expression of
another will dominating ours, and enforcing itself. But
we use it here for a determination of our own will, limiting
our own future action, and are apt to forget the variation
of sense which we have given to it.
160 THE THEOLOGY OP THE INTELLECT:
special occasion by reference to a predeter-
mined law, and possibly by the choice of a par-
ticular machinery, should fail to understand such
action in the Creator.
Now this contrivance, being the union of
Design and Law, is j^recisely that which we might '
expect to discover in the organic sphere, thus
intermediate between the realm in which Force
under Law is prominent, and the realm known to
be ruled by Force under Design. When we do
discover what seems exactly like the work of
contrivance, this a priori probability of its ex-
istence is surely of no slight importance, in
determining the interpretation which we shall
give to these signs.
IV. Now what that interpretation has always
been in days past, T need hardly say. Let any one
examine, first, any single typical instance of
organic structure, such as the human hand or
the human eye; next any complete organism,
such as the human body, in the mutual relation
and action of all its parts ; or, lastly, any great
family of organic life, in the similarities and
differences which characterize its various species.
It is impossible for him, except by a constant
effort of the mind, and by a weary struggle
against the difficulties of language, to avoid the
suggestion of ideas and words, which distinctly
THE EVIDENCE OF DESIGX. 161
argue the belief in an overruling Design. Our
increasing knowledge only seems to increase
this all but irresistible propensity, whether it
show itself in the swift intuition of the poet, or
in the slower and more deliberate conclusions of
the philosopher.
But it has been frequently thought that in
our own days, the discovery of Evolution as a
dominant power in the organic sphere, has
destroyed, or fatally weakened, this argument
of Design. As a witness against the signs of
the Presence of God, it has been welcomed ex-
ultantly on the one side ; it has been naturally
denounced, in anger or in terror, on the other.
This latter attitude of what men call the
11 Theological mind " has been perhaps un-
reasonably ridiculed or denounced. There is u a
drum scientific " as well as " a drum ecclesiastic."
What is ominously introduced on one side, may
not unreasonably be regarded with some jealousy
on the other. Nor is all "prejudice," in the
true sense of the word, unphilosophical. These
who believe on other grounds in the existence
of a true God, may well say of any theory,
which even seems to obscure His sovereignty
over the world, and is hailed as so doing, that
— whatever its array of evidence may be —
whatever the underlying truth which it may
M
162 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT
contain — yet it must have somewhere a fatal
defect.
But already the time is come, when, looking
to the latest form of this Evolution theory, two
things seem clear to all those who have studied
it most deeply. First, that the conception of
Evolution in itself offers far the best hypothesis
by which to account for many actual facts, and
to extend the conceptions suggested by these
facts into a general theory. Next, that many
of the details (and especially the denial of all
sudden developments) are liable to much cor-
rection, and that the investigations needful for
such correction will need the work of many
generations.
Looking at the conception on this almost
acknowledged basis, let us consider what its
effect really is on the principle of Teleology
as such.
The conception of Design in Nature seems
to have gone through three natural stages in
human thought.
There is, first, the line of thought which has
been worked out for generations, from the brief
masterly sketch of the argument on the
human body in Xenophon to the comprehensive
and fascinating work of our own Paley, almost
perfect within its own limits in lucidity and
THE EVIDENCE OF DESIGN. 163
coherency of logic. It regards each organ or each
organism in itself and by itself. It traces the
adaptation of the various parts and of the whole
to the circumstances, the function, the happiness
of the animal, or, in the case of man, to the
subordination of the bodily to the spiritual life. It
sees in all these an analogy to the adaptations of
human design, at once real in kind and in-
finitely transcendant in degree ; and it draws an
inference of Creative Design, intelligible to the
simplest, and impressive to the dullest mind.
But, as knowledge advances, it becomes
impossible to regard each organism in and by
itself. It is seen that such views, being neces-
sarily partial, must constantly conflict with each
other, just as the organisms which they regard
come into mutual conflict. Moreover, it is
observed, first that certain great laws of structure
and organisation run through whole families of
living beings ; and next, that in any individual
species there are, or may be, parts of their
structure rudimentary and apparently useless,
which, nevertheless, in another species receive
development and attain to usefulness. And so
the conception arose (which was forcibly and
clearly worked out by a great living physio-
logist 10 ) that on each great family of organic
10 See " Owen on the Nature of Limbs" (1849).
M 2
164 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT ;
life there was a general archetypal structure
impressed, which in each species was varied, in
minute and beautiful gradations, with a view
to the function of that species in the world.
It was a theory subtler, less direct and for-
cible, than the other ; but, so far as I can see,
it led up quite as certainly to the belief in a
Designing Mind, and it even increased our con-
ception of the beauty and symmetry of Design.
But, as knowledge again advanced, this theory
also gave place to the conception of Evolution.
Consider what that conception, as distinct from
many speculations attached to it, really implies. 1 It
starts with " the established fast, that all animals
and plants produce more offspring than come to
perfection. The lower the grade, the greater is
the progeny." " Hence an intense struggle for
existence." It observes, next, that " while the
offspring of the same parents have a general
family likeness," r yet individuals " differ from
their parents in certain elements of structure."
In the struggle for existence " those who are
best fitted must survive." So far it is on the
solid ground of observed fact. It then advances
1 I quote in the text from Henslow's " Evolution and
Religion," part i. chap. ii. There is an admirable sketch
of the main principles in Mr. Thornton's book, already
quoted, " Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Meta-
physics," chap. v. sect. 2.
THE EVIDENCE OF DESIGN. 165
to two hypotheses, one of which is, as yet, im-
perfectly verified, the other incapable of actual
verification. It holds that these victorious varia-
tions " become hereditary and intensified/' and,
on the ruin of less powerful varieties, create our
established species. It supposes, next, all species
of plants and animals to have sprung from a
common parentage, 2 slowly through the ages
differentiated into the infinite variety which we
see, and preserved by the balance of individual
variation and permanence of type. Both these
hypotheses need verification; the former has
already received it in part, and has in itself much
probability : the latter is still a mere hypothesis.
Now it is abundantly clear that this Evolution
theory materially alters our conception of the
method of creative action in the organic
world ; and that, in fact, it places the action of
the Supreme Power (so to speak) farther away
from us, behind the veil of secondary causes.
2 It is probably not essential to the theory to suppose
that all life, in the various genera and species, sprang
from a single monad, and travelled from some one birth-
place. The conception of what used to be called "centres
of creation " might be reconciled with it. The transition
from inorganic matter to organic life may have taken place
at different times and more places than one ; and the original
monad in each case may have had peculiarities dependent
on the conditions of its origination.
166 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT:
But does it really alter our sense of the reality
of that action ? I venture to answer No.
For I note that of the first origin of Life itself,
it gives no account, except that as yet its author
strongly opposes the idea of its generation out
of Inorganic Matter ; and so forces us to face-
the idea of a distinct Creation.
I observe that, next, it gives no account what-
ever of the cause either of the origination of those
diversities, which present the first germ of the
differentiation of species, or of their coexistence
with the general permanence of type. 3 Yet it is
absurd to speak of chance ; it is hardly more
reasonable to use the vague pseudo-scientific
phrases, which, professing to declare the cause of
3 Mr. Thornton says (p. 239), with his usual vigour and
plainness of speech, " What, then, is the cause ? Unphilo-
sophic people will most likely call it ' all chance,' getting*
sneered at for their pains, and justly too, as using words
without meaning. But are not philosophers themselves
doing much the same thing, and merely restating facts,
which they profess to explain, when, like Mr. Lewes, they
talk of the ' specific shape ' assumed by an ' organic plasma'
being ■ always dependent on the polarity of its molecules/
' or due to the operation of immanent properties/ or
declare that in the process of Organic Evolution 'each
stage determines its successor/ ■ consensus of the whole
impressing a peculiar direction on the development of
parts, and the law of Epigenesis necessitating a serial
development'?" Surely there is a little of the Aristo-
phanic Atvos here.
THE EVIDENCE OF DESIGN. 167
this phenomenon, simply reiterate under another
form the statement of its existence. Nor should we
omit to notice (although this may not materially
affect the argument) that it seems at least doubtful
whether this variation is in all cases slight, need-
ing the lapse of many generations to produce by
accumulation a strongly marked difference. Ex-
perience, both of the effects occasionally caused
by breeding, and of what we call monstrous
births, seems to contradict any attempt to lay
this down as an universal law. Natura non facit
saltum 4 may be a good general rule, but cannot
be pressed invariably. If exceptional cases be
allowed, the hypotheses of Evolution and Suc-
cessive Creation approach each other, and may
possibly some day form parts of a still wider gene-
ralization. But whether gradual or sudden, what
is the cause of the variation ? The supposition
of an ordaining Will is a true cause — suggested
by the actual intervention of human will in
producing such variations by cultivation of plants
and breeding of animals — although (as we might
expect) infinitely transcending the narrow limits,
4 Mr. Thornton irreverently terms it " a piece of pro-
verbial philosophy as weak as the weakest of Mr. Tupper's ."
"That Nature," he adds, "does sometimes make a leap,
and a pretty long one, must be obvious to any visitor to
the Museum of the Eoyal College of Surgeons " (p. 237).
168 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT:
with which human will has to content itself, espe-
cially in relation to the animal kingdom. There
is no other that can be placed in rivalry with it. 5
I observe, again, that this " struggle for ex-
istence" goes on in contact with an outer world
of elemental force, of inorganic matter, of lower-
vegetable life. The " fittest " survives in virtue
of its fitness. But how comes, first of all, this
general fitness in the lower world to sustain and
foster animal life, seeing that the one is not
derived from the other ? And, again, this supe-
rior fitness, developed in each individual and
perpetuated in his descendants, has reference to
this outer world of circumstance and of previous
history, by which it is certainly not itself pro-
duced. Whence comes this peculiar superiority,
not manifesting itself hap-hazard and tempo-
rarily, but under a law of permanence and con-
tinual increase ? Again, I say, the presence of a
supreme controlling Will we know to be a true
cause. Where shall we find any other ?
I confess that, taking this conception of the
5 Suppose, for example, that the exquisite machinery of
the ear or eye — favourite illustrations of the princijrie of
Teleology — has been formed by a long series of develop-
ment from some coarse rudimentary organ. Would the
control of a Creative Mind be less needed than on the sup-
position of its being created at once in its present beauty
of perfection ?
THE EVIDENCE OF DESIGN. 169
process of Evolution, as if it covered the whole
ground, it seems to me not a little instructive
that its chief discoverer should have called it a
"Natural Selection" — a phrase which in the
very word "selection" implies mind, and which
has no strict meaning*, if " Nature " be imper-
sonal.
But it is worth while to note in passing" that
this struggle for existence does not reign abso-
lutely supreme, even in the realm of organic life.
This realm, as on the one side it touches the
inorganic world of general and pitiless force,
so on the other borders on the higher realm of
mind and humanity. In that higher realm there
is indeed the counterpart of the struggle for
existence in the fierce competition between indi-
viduals and races, under the impulse of self-pre-
servation and the principle of self-love. But
there is also a rival law, gradually asserting
superiority as civilization advances. I mean
the law of what we especially call " humanity,"
directly opposing and often conquering the other
more cruel power — preserving the weak just for
the sake of their weakness, and using victorious
strength for the sake of the race, not for the
sake of the individual. Now, first, this higher
Law, belonging to the sphere of humanity, has
its rudimentary indication within the realm of
170 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT:
animal life, as (for example) in the maternal
instinct — impulsive, I grant, and capricious, but
real — which makes the strong* parent creature
sacrifice itself for its weak offspring, and which
our Lord Himself has hallowed by making it
the type of His own love to His people. But
this is not all. It is a wonderful but undoubted
fact that in the case of animals, domesticated,
and so by reflex influence of men raised above
themselves, there are daily instances of fidelity,
personal attachment to other animals or to men,
acts of sacrifice for affection or for obedience, so
like the acts of humanity, that we see how this
higher law can be introduced by man into the
sphere of animal life. Is it unreasonable, again,
to think that what the created mind does in
special cases every day, affords some analogy of
the operation of a Divine Mind in the animal
creation as a whole ? The law, whatever it is,
which governs organic life, includes this half-
moral element, bearing the likeness of humanity,
as well as the fierce struggle, which bears the
semblance of the ruthlessness of physical force.
Therefore, I cannot see that this magnificent
theory of Evolution, whatever its merits may
be, really shakes the true basis of Teleology. It
has always seemed to me that, as these concep-
tions of the creative method have gradually en-
THE EVIDENCE OF DESIGN. 171
larged themselves, the effect is not unlike that
which is produced on our vision, when we
increase the magnifying power of a telescope,
without increasing the size of the object-glass,
and, therefore, the quantity of light admitted.
Each increase in magnitude recurring spreads
the same light over a larger area, and thus
diminishes its intensity. Our object-glass is
the human mind ; it can take in but a certain
portion of the light of God's presence. It is
the penalty of each wider and larger generaliza-
tion of that presence, that the vividness of our
vision of it shall be dimmed. But the whole
light is still the same, and our eyes soon become
used to the new circumstances of its diffusion.
I believe, therefore, that the old inference of
Design in Nature remains exactly the same in
essence. The more we discover of the infinite
variety in Nature, and, with this extension of
discovery, trace more and more a tendency to
unity in the origin of all things, and to sim-
plicity in the great Forces which rule them, the
more shall we be led irresistibly to the conception
of an Infinite Creative Mind.
V. But there is still a disturbing element
of thought. Perhaps, in contemplating creatiorj,
the question rises in our minds, " To what pur-
pose is this waste ? " — so many rudimentary
172 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT:
forms, so many imperfect existences, and (what
is ultimately a result of this, where it is
not produced by human sin) so much physical
suffering" and death ? It is a natural thought;
it has been urged of late with great force. 6 But
yet it is clear that, in contemplating the work of
any power greater than ourselves, our knowledge
must be partial ; and therefore while it may
assert, because assertion may be partial, it may
not deny, because all denial is universal. 7 In
many things we can see design accomplished;
there we can draw our conclusions. But we
cannot always say, where the design, which we
think we trace, is not accomplished, that in
these cases no purpose whatever is subserved —
any more than our dog or horse, because he
often understands our purpose where we need
his co-operation, could tell the purpose which
governs our life as a whole. 8 The system of
6 As, for example, in Mr. Stuart Mill's " Essay on Nature."
7 Butler has pointed this out with his usual force and
gravity in his " Analogy," part i. chap, vii., " On the
government of God as a scheme imperfectly comprehended."
In the fifth chapter he notices the "waste" of seeds
referred to below.
8 This truth was the most instructive lesson gathered
from the controversy some years ago, initiated by Dr.
Whewell's " Plurality of Worlds." His main object was
apparently, first, to warn men of the slightness of the
positive evidence, by which they arrived at conclusions on
THE EVIDENCE OP DESIGN. 173
nature seems bound together by a two-fold com-
plexity. Many things subserve one result;
each thing subserves many. This complexity,
which we can but very imperfectly imitate,
makes it singularly difficult either to judge of
any one field of being in isolation, or to say of
any one thing that it is fruitless, because it does
not yield what seems to us its natural fruit.
In some cases w T e actually know that we must
not say this. A seed of wheat is intended, we
should say, to grow, and if it be given scope, it
will grow accordingly. Are all the millions of
such seeds wasted, which never grow, because
they feed the whole race of men ? 9 In other
cases we are led indirectly to a similar con-
clusion. Again and again, when men have
this great subject; next, to protest against the false
reasoning on "Final Causes," which, assuming the true
premisses, that in all Creation God's glory must be shown,
and that in our world it is shown most in His rational
sreatures, draws the erroneous inference, that in this way,
and in this only, can it be fully manifested in the other
bodies of our planetary system.
9 See the "Reign of Law," chap. iv. "The intention
with which a grain of wheat is so constituted as to be
capable to producing another wheat plant, is not the less
of the nature of Purpose, because it co-exists with another
intention, that the same grain should be capable of sus-
taining the powers and enjoyments of Life in the body and
soul of Man. . . . Yet the seeds of corn, which, as seeds, are
destroyed, when they are converted into bread, may in
that aspect be represented and regarded as failures."
174 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT :
foolishly and cruelly interfered in the sphere of
animal life, by destroying some insignificant race
of creatures, unexpected uses of that race in the
order of creation have been brought out for the
first time by experience of the effects of their
loss. Even of the dread mystery of physical-
suffering, we know that such suffering has its
uses in the sphere of humanity ; can we be sure
that it has no purpose elsewhere ? The con-
dition of the brute creation, and their capacities
of happiness and suffering, are simply unknown
to us. We cannot reason upon them, nor need
we attempt to meddle with such reasoning. St.
Paul speaks of the groaning and travailing of
creation as a whole ; he does not encourage us
to suppose that it is utterly fruitless, except in
the one case of humanity. Christianity refuses on
this great subject to disconnect the lower world
from the history of man. Surely this doctrine
is, to say the least, not destitute of probability,
in an age which insists so strongly on unity in
creation.
Even if, in many cases, we are in the dark,
let us confess our ignorance, but let us not
suffer what we do not know to rob us of the
reasonable inference from what we do know.
The question " To what purpose this waste ? "
in the Gospel, even had it been asked sincerely,
THE EVIDENCE OF DESIGN. 175
yet assumed that one view of use embraced the
whole possibility of usefulness ; and it was re-
buked accordingly by a larger conception of
that which was fit to show forth the glory of
God, and be the future lesson of mankind.
Possibly to other forms of the same question
our Lord's words in reply suggest the principle
of the true answer. The one question is, whether
the contemplation of Creation as a whole leads
to the inference of wisdom and goodness in the
Supreme Power, or whether on the whole it
seems confused, purposeless, cruel. To that
question all human literature supplies the
answer. The " offences " are exceptional :
therefore, although they perplex and disquiet us
in proportion to our higher conception of what
is implied in the belief in a God, they can be
borne. They may be, in the strictest sense,
"trials of faith;" to some, perhaps, the chief
trials of faith ; out of which the faith may
emerge in greater strength, as well as greater
humility.
VL Such is a brief sketch of the great
argument of Teleology. It remains to consider
its relation to the argument of Causation.
Clearly they occupy much common ground in
their results, although the observations on
which they rest are independent of each other,
176 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT :
the one from the present inferring" the past, the
other discovering in the past anticipation of the
present. So far as this is the case, the one
simply strengthens the other, without intro-
ducing any new step in the argument.
But what says Teleology on the great ques.-
tion between Theism and Pantheism, with
which the consideration of Causation alone
leaves us face to face ? Any ultimate theory of
the origin of the universe must (as we have seen)
account both for Mind and Matter, and can
hardly accept the idea of their co-ordinate inde-
pendent self-existence. But what shall we hold
to be the true relation of Mind to Matter?
Shall we liken it to the relation of the soul to
the body, suggesting the theory of Pantheism, or
the relation of the mind in man to external
matter on which he works, suggesting the belief
in a Personal God ?
Let us look first to argument from the
analogy of our own experience. Certainly, so
far as our experience goes, Mind united neces-
sarily to matter in humanity has only the
power, and that not an absolute power, to use
and mould it in the present, without any ca-
pacity of preparing it, organizing it, combining
various elements in it, for a long series of
changes extending far into the future. Mind,
EVIDENCE OF DESIGX. 177
on the other hand, dealing with matter extra-
neous to itself and incapable of reacting upon it,
can do this, and does it every day, to an extent
limited only by its own faculties, and in forms
capable of all but endless variety. It is true that
in man the action of mind on external matter can
be carried on only through an internal material
organization ; but still the power of extension
and development of its action does not depend
on any improvement of that material organiza-
tion. The living and progressive element in it
is mental ; the bodily instrumentality remain-
ing fixed, and not partaking of the capacity of
progress, remains as an adjunct, with which
there is comparatively little difficulty in con-
ceiving that Mind in other and higher Beings
might dispense. So far, therefore, as analogy
may be drawn from our human experience, the
conclusions of Teleology incline us most distinctly
to accept the conception of a mind above the
universe, not a mind necessarily united to it,
and incapable of transcending it.
But this argument, although - it has un-
doubtedly exercised much power over the com
mon reason of mankind, may be put aside as
inconclusive, because objection may be taken to
pressing human analogies too far. Let us then
consider broadly the fact that the whole relation
N
178 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT :
implied in Design belongs to mind and to mind
alone. The relation of cause and effect in
Nature carries our thoughts back to an actual
history of the past,, exhibited in the external
sphere, with connexions which may be physical
only, and of which we speak under the vague,
term of " Laws " — a term borrowed, indeed,
from the realm of Mind, but yet emptied of its
distinctive significance. On the other hand,
the relation of what we call means and ends
looks on to the future. The connexion which it
establishes between things is one purely mental
— so purely mental, that within our own ex-
perience it may never be actually realized in
fact, though it may be formed perfectly and
distinctly in mind. We are conscious every
day, on the one hand, of effects of our own
actions, undoubted in fact, yet unforeseen in our
mind; and on the other, of ends carefully de-
signed in mind, yet unattained in fact. Hence,
in relation to the system of the universe, it is clear
that the idea of Design represents it as existing
potentially in the Creative Mind, before it was
realized in fact. This carries with it the inevi-
table inference that the Creative Mind existed
in sole absolute being before the world was;
and that the Will of that Supreme Mind,
guided by the creative idea, was the actual
THE EVIDENCE OF DESIGN. 179
Cause of the universe, in its matter as well as its
form.
Hence it is that in all times Teleology is the
delight of the Theist, the abomination of the
Pantheist. It leads irresistibly to a Creative
Mind, distinct from its work, that is, to a true
Personal God. Of the character of that Mind,
being itself a purely intellectual conception, it
can infer only the intellectual attributes of a
supreme wisdom, wielding a supreme power.
It borrows from other forms of our conscious-
ness, when in practice it infers benevolence or
righteousness. But in its own sphere its in-
ference rises to the belief in that Wisdom and
Power as Infinite, so far as we can conceive In-
finity — that is, as immeasurably transcending
all that we can realize and all that we can
imagine. Let the most be made of the irregu-
larities, the apparent failures, the waste of
energy in conflict, the consequent suffering, in
Nature — still these are but exceptions, so com-
pletely swallowed up in the evidence of the rule,
that, if they are real, they can but weaken the
argument very slightly, and the doubt whether
they are real grows at every step as we pursue
it. Under whatever theory of the First Cause
men study Nature in its entirety, by the intui-
tion of the poet, or by the induction of the
N 2
180 THE THEOLOGY OF THE INTELLECT:
philosopher, their minds are pervaded by the
thought of Infinity. The cry " What is man ? "
rises to their lips in the presence of the mighty
universe. But if once the conception of Design
be admitted, then, whether we gaze on the
vastness of the starlit heavens, with the faintest
conception of what it really means, or through
the microscope study the infinite delicacy and
beauty of minuteness of an organism which it
alone can make visible to us, the vague
cry of bewilderment changes into the higher
strain of adoration — " O the depth of the
riches, both of the wisdom and the knowledge
of God ! »
We must not for a moment forget, even now,
that there are other witnesses still to be called
from the moral side of our being, not only to tell
their own stoiy of the moral attributes of God,
but to strengthen the conviction of His eternal
Personality. Only by an effort can we keep
their voices from mingling with those tones of
witness, which we have been considering; for
as I have already reminded you, the soul in all
its parts is one. But even now, the conclusion
of a Personal Creator, to which the consideration
of Causation leads us w 7 ith some hesitation, is
infinitely strengthened by these glimpses of De-
sign and Purpose. The brief and sublime sim-
THE EVIDENCE OF DESIGN. 181
plicity of the narrative from which the text is
taken, while it speaks with a certainty far
beyond the results of our Induction, is gladly
welcomed as the clear expression of what the
soul for itself has dimly seen.
In the spirit of the great Psalm of Creation
(Ps. civ.), which we have sung to-day (Whit-
sunday), we survey the wondrous order of the
universe; we discover everywhere not only
power of Causation, but Design in all its wisdom
and beauty; and we recognise, not an Anima
mundi, impersonal and impalpable, but a God
" who sees all that He has made and beholds it
as very good/'' Then, although the moral attri-
butes, which awaken our deepest wonder and
thanksgiving, are j^et uncontemplated, what
can we do but burst into the exclamation of the
Psalmist ? " Praise the Lord, O my soul ! O
Lord my God, Thou art become exceeding
glorious; Thou art clothed in majesty and
honour ! "
LECTURE VI.
THE THEOLOGY OF THE IMAGINA-
TION.
I- — THE POSITION AND VALUE OP THE IMAGINATION.
II. — THE FUNCTION OF THE IMAGINATION IN THE PERCEP-
TION OP BEAUTY.
III. — THE BEAUTY IN INANIMATE NATURE OP
(a) PERFECTION.
(&) GRANDEUR..
IV.— THE PECULIAR AND HIGHER BEAUTY OF LIFE AND
MIND.
V. — THE PERCEPTION OP BEAUTY IN NATURE A REVELA-
TION OP MIND — POLYTHEISTIC, PANTHEISTIC, THEISTIC.
VI.— THE WITNESS OF IMAGINATION TO A TRUE GOD, BY
(a) ITS RESTING ON PERSONALITY.
(b) ITS POWER TO IDEALIZE.
(c) ITS POWER TO CREATE.
VII.— THE FUNCTION OF THE THEOLOGY OF THE IMAGINA-
NATION.
(a) AS A LINK BETWEEN OTHER BRANCHES OF
THEOLOGY.
(b) AS HAVING INTRINSIC POWER OF ITS OWN.
" Thine eyes shall see the King in His glory : they shall
behold the land very far away." — Isa. xxxiii. 17.
THE THEOLOGY OF THE IMAGINATION. 183
Hitherto we have traced out two lines of the
Theology of the Intellect, distinct, yet nearly
inseparable. The simple consideration of the
line of Causation had led us up to the great
antagonism, in which Pantheism and Theism
stand in deadly opposition to each other. From
this consideration we turned next to that con-
ception of Design, which so emphatically inter-
venes in the controversy on the side of the faith
in a Creative Mind. We saw first, how that
conception, and it alone, gave unity of Idea to
the Universe, carrying on the line of continuity
through the great breaks, which otherwise are
to us absolutely impassable. We saw next,
how, in considering the evidence of Design in
the world, as a whole, the existence of the
realm of created mind, in which design and
will obviously rule, threw an unquestionable
light of interpretation over the realm of matter.
Then, proceeding to the world of Organic Life —
the chosen battle-field of Teleology — we inquired
into the true sense of the " contrivance/'' which
it so manifestly appears to show ; we asked how
far the new theory of Evolution, even accepted
as absolutely true, affected the old time-honoured
Teleological argument ; we glanced at the signi-
ficance of the apparent " waste," which that
theory has brought out into special prominence.
184 THE THEOLOGY OE THE IMAGINATION".
And, lastly, we examined the ground of the all
but invariable opinion which makes Teleology
the handmaid of Faith in a true Personal God ;
and draws the inference of the Psalmist, " O
Lord ! in wisdom hast Thou made them all.
Thou art clothed with majesty and honour ! " '
(I.) From these two lines of intellectual
witness, so closely related to each other, it will
be hereafter our most important duty to turn to
the two great lines of Moral Theology — the
Theology of the Conscience, and the Theology
of the Affections — which appear to be similarly
related to each other, and which certainly are
wholly distinct in character from those already
traced out.
But, before doing so, it is well to refer to a
line of witness to God, subordinate, but not
unimportant — the Theology of the Imagination,
to which the text appeals. It naturally presents
itself at this point in the argument, because the
Imagination, while most intimately connected
with the understanding, possessing, indeed, in
itself a substantially intellectual character, is
nevertheless a kind of link between the power
of pure intellectual thought, and the moral
elements of our nature, especially the element of
affection. It has much of the light of the one,
much also of the earnestness and glow of the
THE THEOLOGY OF THE IMAGINATION. 185
other; and perhaps its chief power and value
depend on this intermediate position between the
two great factors of our human nature. Certain] y
every one who has ever gazed on a glorious
scene in Nature, or listened to a grand strain of
music, will remember how, so long as it possessed
his soul, it at once stimulated in him a play
of intellect — half-passive, half-unconscious, in
"thoughts beyond his thought''' — and also
kindled moral emotions — perhaps of resolution
and enthusiasm, perhaps of humility, sadness,
submission — now firing the eye with a new
light, now quenching' that fire in tears.
There are reasons why it should especially
claim our consideration in these days, because
(whatever we may think of the comparison of
this age with ages gone by, in respect of the
bright particular stars of solitary greatness,) no
one can well doubt that a sense of the power of
Imagination, and of the value of all that feeds
it, is diffused through Society to an extent
rarely, if ever, equalled in earlier times. The
popular admiration of natural scenery, especially
in its sublimer and more terrible aspects — the
passion for Art, and above all other Art the music
which is the poetry of the people — the deliberate
recognition of the sense of beauty, as an integral
factor in all high civilization, not unconnected
186 THE THEOLOGY OF THE IMAGINATION.
even with its moral aspects — the cordial en-
listment of all that can suggest beauty in the
service of Religion — all these influences are tell-
ing on the thought of our times, to disclose and
to exalt the power of Imagination, The very
spirit of the age, therefore, suggests that in
tracing out the lines of Natural Theology, the
Theology of the Imagination should not be passed
by. We need not suppose that this Theology of
the Imagination belongs to the cloud-]and of
unreality. If it claimed to be our sole or even
our chief guide, we might indeed, fear lest it
should lead us into those shadowy realms.
Those who expel Religion from the working-
day of understanding to the " dim religious
light " of Imagination, and call upon us to be
thankful that it is allowed to linger there, appear
simply to bring back the old intellectual and
aesthetic Paganism, which made (as was well
said by Dr. Arnold) the consciousness of God
little more than the feeling with which we
contemplate a glorious sunset. But while in
the name of all that is solid and practical, we
indignantly resist this aesthetic ursurpation, and
resolve to trace by aid of the intellect and
conscience the firm massive skeleton of Truth,
which Imagination and Affection may clothe in
living flesh and blood, yet we must not carry
THE THEOLOGY OF THE IMAGINATION. 187
our indignation so far, as to ignore the claim of
the Imagination to a certain province of the
Religious kingdom. God made the mind in all
its aspects ; in all its aspects it must turn to
Him, "to behold the King" of Kings, not
only in His Wisdom and His Righteousness,
but also " in His Beauty."
II. I speak of Beauty : for, without attempt-
ing to define the subtle processes of imagination,
I venture to think that there are three leading 1
principles of its action tolerably clear. First,
we may say broadly that, as the Intellect dis-
cerns Truth, as the Conscience discerns Right, so
the Imagination properly discerns Beauty. Next,
without discussing the abstract nature of this
principle of Beauty, it seems obvious that, while
it is closely allied to truth, fitness, power, right-
eousness, yet it is something distinct from them
all — incapable, perhaps, of existing where they
are not, but surely not unfrequently absent
where they are present. Lastly, few (in these
days at any rate) will doubt that the sense of
Beauty in man is, like the sense of truth and
the sense of right, universal and irresistible in
itself, yet singularly variable and fallible in its
applications ; and that, although it begins in a
kind of instinct, and in the mass of men is
developed chiefly by practice and in detail, yet
188 THE THEOLOGY OF THE IMAGINATION.
that it has its own true philosophical laws, more
subtle, yet not less real, than those which are
discerned by the intellect and the conscience.
All these things have been recognised in the Art
and literature of all ages ; but in our own time
they have been brought oat with singular clear-
ness, and they have created that movement of
manifold iEstheticism, in the midst of which
we are living now. 1 It is hardly necessary to
do more than recall them to the educated mind.
I appeal to your own consciousness. Whether
you contemplate nature or humanity — whether
you dwell in the inner world of your own fancy,
or accept impressions from the minds of others, —
you cannot help taking it for granted that there
is such a principle as the principle of Beauty,
conspicuous by its presence or by its absence, and
refusing to be confounded with any other prin-
ciple. You cannot help recognising it as a
factor in the happiness and purity of life. You
cannot but be aware, even if you yourselves
understand it not, that it involves, not mere in-
1 It is almost superfluous to refer to the debt of grati-
tude -which Ave owe above all to Mr. Buskin in this matter.
Many of us will remember the first reading of " Modern
Painters " as a new epoch in appreciation of the meaning
of Art, raising it far above the technical rules of experts
and the arbitrary maxims of connoisseurs, and showing it
firmly based on the rock of universal principle.
THE THEOLOGY OF THE IMAGINATION. 189
stinct or individual taste, but determinate laws,
on obedience to which depend the loveliness of
Nature and the perfection of human Art.
To consider, then, the Theology of the Imagi-
nation, is, therefore, to estimate the revelation of
God in the beauty of Nature — taking care, as
before, to consider Nature in the fulness of its
true sense, including the provinces of matter, of
life, and of mind, not as separate, but as bearing
upon one another at every point. " Nature " (it
has been said) " has two revelations — that of Use
and that of Beauty." 2 In the study of design
the intellect searches thoughtfully into the for-
mer; the Theology of the Imagination gazes
on the latter, with much of thoughtfulness, with
much also of emotion.
III. What are the chief impressions, then, of
Beauty, which Nature makes upon the mind,
first in the world of things, and then in the
higher world of persons ? Perhaps in the world
of inanimate things, as soon as the perception
of Beauty becomes a true mental perception, the
two impressions most obvious and most forcible
are the beauty of perfection, and the beauty of
2 I quote from the Sermon on " Nature," in Cancn
Mozley's "University Sermons" (perhaps one of the most
remarkable portions of that remarkable volume,) to which
I am throughout this Lecture considerably indebted.
190 THE THEOLOGY OF THE IMAGINATION.
grandeur. There are indeed sensations of beauty
(as, for example, in the richness or delicacy of
colour) which are almost entirely sensuous, not
wholly unlike the pleasure derived through the
palate from strength or refinement of flavour.
No idea seems to be as yet awakened in the mind.
The soul is possessed or (as men say) " drunk with
beauty/'"' and that is all. But as soon as thought
is roused to action, then the two ideas of perfec-
tion and grandeur are suggested at once.
Now the sense of the beauty of perfection has
necessarily relation to an idea of some unity of
construction and purpose in each several thing,
which is either clearly discerned by the mind, or,
perhaps more often, taken for granted, although
not perfectly comprehended. It is distinct from
the sense of usefulness ; but of all the impressions
of beauty most closely allied with it. To it
perhaps belongs the sense of beauty of form and
of composition, whether the more obvious beauty
which we discern in regular symmetry, or the
subtler beauty of that less obvious and freer
obedience to a law of unity, which we term pic-
turesqueness. There is here a beauty in perfect
simplicity, and a subtler beauty in harmony,
both of form and colour — a harmony which, as
in music, is often enhanced by the apparent
discords of strong contrast. In both is involved
THE THEOLOGY OF THE IMAGINATION. 191
the conception of the relation of various things,
or various parts of a thing, to some unity which
makes it what it is. There is a certain beauty
in the perfection even of mechanical fitness of
the various parts of a structure to work together,
especially if they work with ease and swift-
ness to one result. Hence it is that while the
investigations of material Science always tend
to analysis, that is, to the separation of the
whole into its various parts, the aesthetic con-
ception of the poet or the artist mostly tends in
the opposite direction to synthesis. It resists
this analytical process ; its idea is to grasp each
thing as a whole, and to show that in the whole
there is more than the aggregate of its parts.
Possibly it is in virtue of its power to aid this
conception of the whole, without obtrusion of
divisions, and without disproportion of various
parts, that, according to the old proverb, —
" Distance lends enchantment to the view,"
To quote again eloquent w T ords, — " To another
the poet leaves search and analysis ; he is content
to look and to look only ; he stands, like a
w r atcher or a sentinel, gazing on earth, sea, and
sky; upon the vast assembled imagery, upon
the rich majestic representation on the canvas.'''' 3
3 See Mozley's " Sermons/ 5 p. 125 (2nd edit.).
192 THE THEOLOGY OF THE IMAGINATION.
If ever this attitude of soul gives way to the
analytical spirit, pulling the conception to pieces,
in hope perhaps of finding the secret of beauty,
the power of the imagination is gone. The
man is in the condition which Wordsworth
describes, —
" The primrose by the river's brim,
A yellow primrose 'tis to him,
And it is nothing more."
Each element is torn from its place, and by the
very disruption its significance is gone.
In this form of the sense of beauty there is an
exquisite but calm and well-balanced pleasure.
Nothing of awe, perhaps little of enthusiasm,
mingles with it. The mind is all the while sen-
sible of its own power, to discern, to appreciate,
even in some degree to judge, the beauty pre-
sented to it. It is far otherwise in the other
form of the sense of beauty in the material world
— the impression of grandeur, whether of scale
or of power. The beauty of perfection is wholly
independent of scale; we can recognise it at
least as much by the microscope in the infinitely
little, as by the telescope in the infinitely vast.
But there is a wholly different sense of beauty
in the perception of grandeur. It may be the
grandeur of vastness, whether of gigantic sim-
plicity or of that complex harmony of many
THE THEOLOGY OF THE IMAGINATION. 193
parts, which grows upon us, when the eye from
below ranges over mountain ridges to some
snowy peak, or from above over a great panorama
stretching away inimitably into the distance.
It may be the grandeur of power, which every
man knows well, who has ever listened to the
blast of the wind or the roar of an avalanche,
felt the dull thrill of an earthquake, or watched
the irresistible violence of a stormy sea.
In all these cases there is a strange delight,
which strikes even the most frivolous, in the
consciousness of our own insignificance, in the
sense of awe, breathing from the grandeur in
which, as we say, "we are lost/' in the un-
expected, and, as it seems at first sight, the
unreasonable, sense of repose, attending upon
this sense of our helplessness and littleness.
The beauty of grandeur is like the beauty of
perfection, in that it resists analysis, and con-
ceives that which it contemplates as a whole.
The two impressions, indeed, may be closely
allied, for grandeur often depends not only on
scale, but on the true relation of the parts of a
thing to the whole. But it adds, as of its own,
the sense of infinity, and the contrast of this
infinity with the littleness of man.
Perhaps connected with this sense of grandeur
is the sense of the beauty of mystery, in that
o
194 THE THEOLOGY OF THE IMAGINATION.
which is dimly or imperfectly perceived, so as
to suggest the idea of something underlying
what we see, or extending beyond the range of
our vision — of which we simply know that it is,
though how it is and what it is we know not.
It is perhaps more to partial knowledge than
to complete ignorance that we may rightly
apply the old saying, Omne ignoiwm pro mag-
nifico. If once we see all, or think that we see
all — nothing being left to the fantastic power of
imagination — every one who is familiar either
with architectural magnificence, or even with
the vastness of mountain scenery, knows how
the highest sense of grandeur passes away.
Now in some sense these two perceptions of
Beauty are complementary to each other. The
sense of perfection in structure and purpose is a
mental action, implying the recognition of
ideas embodied in the world of things, belonging
to a mind like our own. Perhaps even here the
sense of Beauty is most vividly kindled in the
mind, when this recognition is felt to be im-
perfect, throwing the mind on the consciousness
of ideas embracing but transcending our own.
But the sense of grandeur passes beyond this
indirect consciousness of our own inferiority.
Its essence lies in the belief that the Mind,
which we thus contemplate, infinitely transcends
THE THEOLOGY OF THE IMAGINATION. 195
our own power even to comprehend it. In the
former we feel ourselves, in the latter we lose
ourselves, before a Supreme Mind.
IV. But great as is the sense of beauty in
these lower regions of the world of things,
there is a still higher and more exquisite sense
of beauty as we approach personality, through
all the regions of life. In the beauty of merely
inanimate nature there is a certain oppressive-
ness, unless by faith or imagination we can
discern a soul in it. Even in the lower world
of things, the sense of beauty largely depends
on the sense of change, movement, life, whether
real or fancied life. All poetry delights in the
attribution of this fancied life — to the play of
the clouds, the whispers of the wind, the
" twinkling smile " or the te wild laugh " of the
ocean, 4 the mystic echoes of the mountain. 5 Per-
4 The avi)pidnov ye\a<r/ji.a, usually translated by the
former of these phrases. Mr. Hawker, of Morwenstow,
taught by his experience of our south-western coast, inge-
niously suggests the latter. (See Mr. Baring- Gould's
" Life of Hawker.")
5 In the " Ghristian Year " (Second Sunday after Trinity),
Keble speaks of the indications to the imagination, not
only of life, but of love, as the causes of our delight in the
sights and sounds of Nature. But this is surely only a
part of the whole. The sense of freedom, play, and the
like, corresponding to the individuality of human nature,
is as much a ground for this delight as the sense of Love,
which belongs to the unity of that same nature.
O 2
196 THE THEOLOGY OP THE IMAGINATION.
haps one reason why Music appeals more power-
fully than painting or sculpture to the mass of
men, is that it has in it this constant play of
change and animation. But in real life, there
is a beauty quite distinct and peculiar. We
feel it even in the contemplation of the con-,
stant freshness and luxuriance of vegetative
life. In this — whether in the intense beauty of
the tropical forest, or in the homelier and
gentler beauty of our own scenery — we find a
constant and satisfying feast, appealing in some
way to our sympathy far more than the con-
templation of the noblest inanimate grandeur.
We feel it more deeply still when we turn to
the animal life, in which we trace some shadows
of freedom, mind, and will, 6 and which accord -
6 Very strikingly is the intensity of the sense of beauty
in this sphere recognised in a well-known passage of
Coleridge's " Ancient Mariner," as melting an ice-bound
heart: —
" happy living things ! no tongue
Their beauty might declare ;
A spring of love gush'd from my heart,
And I bless' d them unaware.
Sure my kind saint took pity on me,
And I bless'd them unaware.
The self-same moment I could pray ;
And from my neck so free
The Albatross fell off, and sank
Like lead into the sea."— (Part IV.)
THE THEOLOGY OE THE IMAGINATION. 197
ingly has power to awaken sympathy as well
as delight. But the highest beauty belongs by
all confession to "the human form divine."
We trace it even in the grace and strength and
energy of the body, instinct with life. We
trace it far more in the play of feeling and
thought, in the countless varieties of momentary
or habitual expression which pass over the face.
The beauty of perfection is seen perhaps most
clearly in organic structure ; but there it is also
lit up by a new and higher beauty, when we
recognise it as a living structure. Life in its
lower and its higher forms has a special beauty
of its own.
But we must take one more step, for which
the last has prepared us, and speak of the su-
preme sense of Beauty, which belongs to the
contemplation of Mind. The recognition in
any being even of the power of intellect, in its
keen intuition,its comprehensive grasp of reason-
ing, its subtle powers of discovery and creation,
tells on the imagination ; but it is especially the
moral element of strong righteousness, unsullied
purity, unwearied love, which carries with it
(independently of the emotions of wonder, appro-
bation, sympathy), an impression of nobleness
and beauty immeasurably beyond any other.
If ever we speak of " beauty of character,"
198 THE THEOLOGY OF THE IMAGINATION.
we refer to moral character ; if we trace beauty
of expression in the face, it is not so much in
the cold light of intellect, as in the enthusiastic
glow of earnestness and love. It is because in
man the mind and soul look through the face,
that we recognise in human beauty something
higher than proportion, symmetry, and even life.
Thus, by a law of its own, the imagination refuses
to pause in the world of things, or in the fleshly
vestibule of the temple of personality. It goes
on and on ; and when it has reached the inner
shrine, the light there seen is thrown back on the
earlier objects of contemplation. The sense of
beauty in unity and perfection, in grandeur
above and beyond us, in the glow and play of
life, is seen to have been really stimulated by a
half conscious sense of mind, behind them and
underlying them all.
This seems to be involved in the undoubted
tendency by which, even in the world of things,
the imagination is irresistibly driven to per-
sonify. That tendency is familiar to us in all
poetry, conscious or unconscious — in the poetry
which lies diffused (so to speak) in capacity
through all humanity, and the poetry which
flashes out in concentrated energy from the minds
of the artistic leaders of mankind. But what
does the tendency itself mean? Surely its first
THE THEOLOGY OF THE IMAGINATION. 199
obvious meaning is that the recognition of life
and mind is essential to the highest conception
of beauty. Surely, if we look deeper, we shall
see in it the perception by the Imagination of all
that the intellect by another method discovers of
that unity of Nature and that law of develop-
ment in it, in virtue of which the study of the
lower kingdoms of Nature becomes a stepping-
stone to the study of personal being.
There are, indeed, minds and circumstances, in
which this natural order of thought is broken,
because men are so deeply sensible of the
presence of what is evil, or even of what is
mean, grotesque, ungraceful, in their own souls
and in the condition of the world, that they turn
back from humanity in disgust, seeking (often
in vain) to forget it altogether in the contem-
plation of Nature. Here we observe, that,
directly or indirectly, the same disturbing
element crosses this line of Theology, which
makes itself felt far more painfully in the moral
sphere. But, whenever this takes place, then, if
there is no recognition of a living God in
Nature, the effect is one of utter disquietude and
discontent, restlessness or despondent dreari-
ness of soul ; the right tendency of the mind
being checked, it falls naturally into a morbid
condition, sometimes maddened by the contrast
200 THE THEOLOGY OF THE IMAGINATION'.
between man and Nature, sometimes throwing"
the dark shadows of humanity upon Nature
itself. 7 If there be a recognition of God, there
7 I cannot refrain from quoting Canon Mozley's eloquent
description of the tone of this kind of poetry : — ■
" Take the more striking and conspicuous case of the.
great Atheistic poets, and what is the issue of a religion of
natural beauty here ? First discord, and then despair.
On the one side is their astonishing insight into the glory
of the external world ; they dive into the very heart of it
and are as absorbed in the vision of beauty before their
eyes as if they were prophets whose minds had been
attuned by the Divine Creator Himself into sympathetic
union with His Creation ; such is the power of the Sight
upon them ; on the other hand is the very spirit of blas-
phemy ; so that one moment they adoi'e like the cherubim,
in the next they cry out like the vexed demoniacs, and say,
— ' What have we to do with Thee, Thou God of heaven
and earth ? ' How are we to account for this madness,
for this dreadful schism in the minds of these men, which
splits them, as it were, in two beings ? The cause of this
discord in their own spirits was, that they themselves cut
nature into two, and took its beauty separated from its
law."
" They came straight from the scene without, which
fascinated and enraptured them, to look upon a dark
struggle within, which scandalized them ; and they had
not a single reason in their minds — I will not say to
account for this yoke of weakness and misery, for nobody
can do that, — but for submitting to it. They were like
men who were obliged to turn away from some smiling
and luxuriant landscape to look within the bars of a
frightful dungeon. The inner man was simply a dreadful
enigma to them ; the strife within, which the apostle
describes, was regarded in the light of an insupportable
grievance, and of a crime in the constitution of things."
THE THEOLOGY OF THE IMAGINATION. 201
is, indeed, rest in Him; yet still, since "it is
not good for man to be alone/' even in His
Presence, there is in the mind a certain tone of
plaintiveness and half-perplexity, making itself
felt, as at least an under-current of thought,
inclined, in the sense of the discord of humanity,
to forget that there is still in it a higher and
richer harmony, than the simpler music of Nature
can supply. 3 In either case the right order is
broken — in the former case hopelessly and funda-
mentally — in the latter only in its secondaiy re-
lations, and therefore without destruction of a
sure and certain hope of a restitution of all
things.
V. Such, as it seems, is the natural course of
the recognition of beauty in the system of Nature
as a whole, surveyed in its perfect gradation from
matter to life, from mere life to spiritual being.
It remains now to inquire what is the aid
which it gives the mind, in its inquiry into the
First Cause and the secret of existence.
It is unquestionably a Revelation of Mind in
Nature, wholly distinct from that Revelation,
which comes from the perception of Design for
8 I have ventured (see "St. James's Lectures," Second
Series, Lect. iv. pp. 81, 82) to trace something of this tone
in the Christian Year, so far as it contemplates humanity
apart from Christ, in the world and not in the Church.
202 THE THEOLOGY OF THE IMAGINATION.
purposes of usefulness, although certainly in
different degrees of closeness related to it. The
formation of design and the creation of beauty
are familiar to us as distinct mental actions. The
human mind, while it recognises and creates
what we call usefulness — which is the proper
adaptation of each thing or each being to perform
the' particular task assigned to it by design —
yet holds the sense and the creation of Beauty
to be a perfectly distinct thing, good in itself, of
which it is idle to ask whether it is useful,
whether (that is) it subserves any other pur-
pose. A thing is beautiful, and that is enough to
make it "a, joy for ever." But it has been
truly said that in some sense the creation
of beauty still more absolutely belongs to
the sphere of mind than the creation of useful-
ness. For, while this usefulness is wrought out,
mostly through physical machinery or through
agents, of whom it matters not whether they
are conscious or no, the creation of Beauty is
effective only when it works on minds able to
contemplate it. It is a real power in the history
of the world, only because it speaks to mind,
and it is hard to conceive how anything but
mind can presuppose mind. Where beauty is
unseen by man, imagination deligTits to con-
ceive it visible to " purer sprites ;" faith falls
THE THEOLOGY OF THE IMAGINATION. 203
back on the higher conception of the contem-
plation of it by the Eternal Mind of Him who
" saw all that He had made, and, behold, it was
very good." If no other joy is yielded by beauty,
yet the " Lord shall rejoice in His works." 9
Hence it is that, in fact, whenever Beauty is
discerned in Nature — since the very perception
of Beauty is closely connected with ideas which
are purely mental, and is excited chiefly by
being-s of life and mind — the soul of man infers a
creative mind by a swift direct intuition, out-
stripping the slower steps of reasoning. Yet
who shall say that such Intuition depends not on
an inherent Law of Thought, or that because it
is swifter, therefore it is less true, than the more
gradual conclusion of Reason ?
But we observe that this Intuition of Mind
in Nature has assumed various forms.
9 See Mozley's "Sermons/' pp. 126, 127. "There is
this remarkable difference between useful contrivance and
beauty as evidence of an intelligent cause, that contrivance
has a complete end and account of itself without any refe-
rence to the understanding of man. ... It is enough if it
works ; and it is not necessary for its use that it should be
seen. But it is essential to the very sense and meaning of
beauty that it should be seen ; and inasmuch as it is visible
to reason alone, we have thus in the very structure of
nature a recognition of reason and an address to reason ;
wholly unaccountable, unless there is a higher Reason or
Mind to make it. For what but reason can address
reason ? "
204 THE THEOLOGY OF THE IMAGINATION.
There was once the old Polytheism — the
" Creed outworn/'' except where it lingers in the
legendsof fairy land or ghost land — which peopled
the world with gods of each power of Nature,
and saw the beauty of what were virtually
secondary and created minds through all the
forms of physical loveliness. But such belief was
but a preparatory stage of faith. It vanished
before the discovery of Unity in Nature, and the
impossibility of finally resting on anything but
unity in thought. The Imagination sought for
some One Presence in Nature. In all the re-
ligious poetry of the world — the earliest form of
poetic utterance — it ascended, explicitly or im-
plicitly, to One God, sometimes directly, some-
times through that curious phase of " Heno-
theism " at which we glanced in the first lecture. 1
But here, also, the same alternative presents
itself between the two great antagonists.
Against the clear vision of the King in His
beauty there rises up the bright but bewilder-
ing mist of the Pantheistic theories, which half
personify an Impersonal Soul of the Universe,
and hold the beauty of Nature to be the beauty
of that Soul looking through the face. Largely
that vein of thought runs through all the poetry
of the world. Perhaps it is not so much by
1 See p. 18.
THIS THEOLOGY OF THE IMAGINATION. 205
Imagination as by the intense moral sense of
Personality in ourselves that it is to be resisted.
VI. {a) But yet even Imagination does bear
witness against it. At one form of that witness
we have already glanced, in the refusal of the
Imagination to rest in the world of things or of
mere animal life. It recognises in the human
mind, in virtue of its personality, and of the intel-
lect, conscience, will, which belong to person-
ality, a beauty higher than all physical beauty,
utterly refusing to be lost in it, capable in
measure of creating it, incapable of being
created by it. But wherever human Person-
ality is recognised as an actual fact, Pantheism
is impossible. Accordingly, the poetry of
humanity — epic, lyric, dramatic — is the correc-
tive of the poetry and art of the physical world.
Nor can we fail to see that it predominates over
it. The poetry which loses man in Nature,
despises him as insignificant and short-lived, or
represents his personality as overborne by ex-
ternal influences of race or circumstance, never
reaches the highest standard. One touch of the
intenser poetry of human nature scatters its
vague, shadowy beauty, just as one ray of sun-
light scatters the mists of the early morning.
(b) But there is a far clearer witness against
the Pantheistic hypothesis in that irresistible
206 THE THEOLOGY OF THE IMAGINATION.
law of thought, by which Imagination is led, first
to idealize, then to recreate.
To idealize is to conceive of principles of
beauty, imperfectly manifested in what we see
of Nature or humanity, but capable of being
grasped in idea by the human mind itself. Such
idealization is familiar to us as the very prin-
ciple of the highest art. A great painter, if re-
presenting an existing scene, will all but inevit-
ably embody in its beauties what the study of
surrounding Nature, as a whole, has impressed
upon his mind; 2 if painting a human face, he
will give it, not this or that momentary expres-
sion, but the impress of its fundamental cha-
racter. This is much, but Art dares to go even
further. A sculptor, who would produce a perfect
statue, studies, indeed, his model; yet who
believes the Apollo Belvedere to be copied abso-
lutely from any living man ? A great dramatic
poet concentrates in his conception of a single
character, and in the few short hours of a play,
ideas which unveil all human nature, and gather
up all the great elements of human life. Yet
who could fancy Hamlet merely copied from some
2 Sco Buskin's "Modern Painters," part v. chap. ii.
vol. iv., on " Turnerian Topography," comparing his ideal
pictirre of the " Pass of Faido " with the actual picture
which a photograph, for example, would present.
THE THEOLOGY OF THE IMAGINATION. 207
living' man of Shakespeare's day ? Mere realism
has its use ; good realism may be better than
bad idealism. But realism belongs only to the
lower ranks of art, and appeals to the mind
which can pierce no deeper than the eye.
But yet there is a wonderful height of mean-
ing in this action of the imagination. It involves
the assertion for the human mind of an essential
superiority to the physical universe in all its
grandeur and beauty, and even to the world of
humanity in its visible and actual manifestations.
It is the claim of a power to discern laws, prin-
ciples, ideas, underlying both these worlds ; to
understand how these might be developed into
capacities of beauty and glory as yet unseen • to
distinguish, therefore, between these ideas, which
belong essentially to mind, and the actual mani-
festations of them in the region of experience.
Either that claim is the wildest dream, or the
soul, which claims this power, is incapable of
being merged in a mere soul of this universe.
Yet this tendency is undoubtedly an inherent
law of human thought. We have been rightly
warned that it has its place under the cold dry
light of scientific thought, as well as in the glow
and colour of poetry.
(c) Yet even with this the Imagination is not
content. The very name of " imagination " or
208 THE THEOLOGY OF THE IMAGINATION.
" phantasy " asserts its power to create. How sig-
nificant it is that the title of " Art/' which pro-
perly denotes all attempt at creation, should have
been peculiarly attached by common consent to the
creations of imagination. The discovery of beauty
drives men irresistibly to imitate and to recreate
it without asking why. The moment that the
principles of beauty are grasped, the mind goes
on to embody them, so imperfectly as rarely to
satisfy itself, but yet so far really, that it can
represent them to other minds. The poet must
sing ; the artist must wield his pencil ; thou-
sands who deserve neither of these lofty names,
yet will reproduce whatever they have seen,
and never without some attempt at creation. 3
True that this creation may not embody itself
in physical reality; but what matters this, if
only the creation reaches the mind of men ?
Again, and even more emphatically, I urge the
marvellous testimony thus borne to the sove-
reignty of mind, as superidr to the noblest forms
of matter, as having an existence absolutely dis-
tinct from them.
3 Every one knows the difficulty, except to a trained
artist, of sketching only what we can actually see, without
putting in what we otherwise know or fancy to exist.
Every one recognises in poetic beauty or poetic justice the
inevitable tendency to idealize beyond actual experience.
THE THEOLOGY OE THE IMAGINATION. 209
But is that Mind our own mind ?
All reason revolts against the notion that the
individual mind is thus literally the " measure
of all things." The more Science shows the in-
timate connexion of all individual beings, the
more it strengthens the instinctive conscious-
ness that the action of the individual mind
is ruled by the Superior Creative Power.
What has been called the " Pathetic Fallacy/'—
the attribution (that is) of our own emotions to
the scenes we contemplate, enlarging them in
the process, like the Brocken shadow, to gi-
gantic dimensions — is dissipated by one touch
of the colder Reason, even if it does not of itself
pass on to reaction, in the sense of something
unfeeling and unsympathetic in Nature, weeping
when we smile, smiling when we weep.
But we may appeal even to the Imagination
itself. Possibly in its shallower phases it may
be merely self-conscious, fancying that it spins
all its creations out of its own self-consciousness.
But this is never the case in minds of the
highest order. They never conceive themselves
to invent their guiding ideas, or to be able in
their creations to disregard them. These ideas
are felt as existing independently of the indi-
vidual mind — whether we call them objective
{i laws " impressed upon Nature, or subjective
p
210 THE THEOLOGY OF THE IMAGINATION.
" forms of thought/' belonging to the human
mind as such,, it matters not. They are dis-
covered, not invented ; and, once discovered, they
cannot be disregarded. The attempt at such
disregard leads in contemplation to the whim or
conventionality of the self-styled connoisseur,
and in creation to results which we call merely
" fantastic " — not perhaps without beauty, but a
beauty of a lower kind, appreciable only by a
few, not the treasure of all humanity, evanescent
as the early tints of the morning sky, when the
bright steady sunlight is brought to bear upon it.
No ! these ideas are the creations of a Personal
Mind ; but we are sure that this mind is not
our own, or the mind of any child of man.
Therefore these two tendencies to idealize and
to re-create, seem to me to rescue the sense of
Mind in Nature from the ambiguity, in which the
conflict of Theism and Pantheism involves it.
They involve the discovery in the universe of
the Ideas of a Creative Mind. They involve
the acknowledgment that this Mind is infinitely
greater than its works, imperfectly manifested
in them all. They add the consciousness that the
human soul is in itself superior to the merely
physical and animal beauty, which it can dis-
cover, test, and in some points reproduce. They
temper this consciousness by the unreserved con-
THE THEOLOGY OF THE IMAGINATION. 211
fession that the Creative ideas, and even the
visible embodiment of them, although like our
own ideas, yet infinitely transcend them. The
more we see, the more the Infinite touches at
every point the enlarging circle of our vision :
the more we labour to represent or create, the
more we feel that one touch of the reality laughs
our efforts to scorn. In all this there is a true
witness to a living God. No man can wonder
that in all ages Imagination has been the hand-
maid of Religion, always having its high use,
unless, like other servants, it rebels against the
superior power.
VII. For this witness of the Imagination to
God, if it be not one of the principal lines of
witness, yet has a real strength, not only in
itself, but also in its singular power of knitting
others together.
(a) It has a close relation to the Theology of
the Intellect. It is like it, because in the uni-
verse it recognises first Power and then Mind.
But it is unlike, because, where the understanding
proceeds by slow, gradual inference, the imagi-
nation darts on, by a swift intuition to be veri-
fied only by its deductions and results. By like-
ness of conclusion, and by unlikeness of method,
the two witnesses strengthen each other.
It leads on to the moral lines of witness, of
p 2
212 THE THEOLOGY OF THE IMAGINATION - .
which we have to speak, because it prepares for
the task of passing* from the acknowledgment
of Power and Wisdom to the perception of
Moral Attributes. But, while the Conscience
testifies of God's Righteousness and His Love in
their bare solid majesty, the Imagination reaches
them through the conceptions of Beauty and
Glory — attaching, indeed, to Power as Power,
still more to Wisdom as Wisdom, but most of all
to Moral Attributes, as of man, so also of God.
Perhaps even more clearly it leads on to the
Theology of Love. Not without cause is Beauty
called " Loveliness -" for the very sight of that
which is beautiful and glorious tells marvellously
on the emotions ; some awe, perhaps, mingles in
the soul with adoring love ; but, provided that
a true Personal Presence is realized, " perfect
love " eventually " casts out fear.''''
This Theology, then, of the Imagination bears
on all the other laws of Natural Theology. As
has been said already, we cannot let it supersede
them. Woe be to the religion which is a reli-
gion of mere imagination ! But yet, though in
less degree, it is woe to us to be wholly without
it. The other forms of Natural Theology, in-
deed, can stand without this, while it without
them has no backbone of solid strength. Yet if
in them we discern the grand outline, it is much
THE THEOLOGY OF THE IMAGINATION. 213
that, through the imagination, that outline
should be so coloured, as forcibly to impress the
mind, and still more forcibly to come home to
the heart.
(b) But to this its value, as a link between
other powers, or accessory to them, we add two
points of distinctive power which we trace in it.
Less than almost any other line of Natural
Theology is it crossed and weakened by the sense
of an evil power warring against the good. I
do not deny that here also there is some sense
of a blight in Nature — traced not only in im-
perfection of beauty, but in what seems to us
positively ugly, grotesque, horrible. There
mingles at times a gleam of serpent-like fasci-
nation with the smile of Natural Beauty. But, at
any rate in its stronger and more positive form,
this impression of disorganization either passes
away before the more steadfast gaze of thought,
or is felt as altogether secondary, almost trifling.
It becomes a common saying that everything
" has a beauty of its own,'-' fitting in, like an
apparent discord in music, with the general har-
mony of the whole. Even if this be not dis-
cerned, yet certainly the discord is felt to be so
exceptional and comparatively so insignificant,
as to be lost in the overpowering impression of
beauty. The imagination is therefore spared the
214 THE THEOLOGY OP THE IMAGINATION.
severity of the trials which the sterner powers of
reason and conscience have to hear and conquer.
But, besides this, the very sense of imperfec-
tion is enlisted for the task of witness. It has a
meaning- indicated by the instructive connexion
of the two parts of the text. To the idea of
"beholding the King in His beauty" is added
the prophetic vision ". of the land very far away."
The imagination is, by its very power to idealize,
the parent of hope — hope of a time when the
defects of the present shall be over — hope of a
knowledge of God, not as He is in His works,
but as He is in Himself. The one book of the
New Testament which appeals most to the ima-
gination is that Apocalypse, which most unveils
Heaven, and most looks on to the future. We
grant that hope is not the solid food of this
present life. We accept the rebuke, " Why stand
ye gazing into Heaven V- — whether it come
from angel denizens of that Heaven, or the earth-
bound philosophies, which deny that there is any
Heaven at all — so long as it simply urges to work
instead of gazing. But hope is a power in life,
" often doomed, yet Med not to die." A real and
effective power can scarcely be found in what is
a simple delusion. If earthly life, taken alone, be
a series of delusions of hope and disenchantments
of experience, the natural conclusion is, not that
THE THEOLOGY OF THE IMAGINATION. 215
hope is a mere delusion, but that this life is not
our all. Such a conclusion even a cold and scep-
tical philosophy has in our own days not refused
to draw. 4 We cannot accept this inference as
the whole or the main statement of the ground
of our faith. But we do not refuse it ; and we
value the Theology of the Imagination, which so
emphatically places it, where alone it can be safe,
in God.
This form of Theology, then, has its place and
its function. It is not accidental that religion
has in old times clothed itself in the earliest
forms of poetry, and in all ages has hallowed
those forms of art which most of all lay hold of
the masses of men. It is not accidental that in
our own days a religious revival, which desires
to claim all men and all society for God, should
at once have fostered, and have made use of, the
revival of Art.
Its function is not perhaps to meet the great
crises of life and the hardest strains of faith.
When unbelief coldly and sternly questions, and
when sin and sorrow assail us, then it is to the
reason, the conscience, the affection that w r e
appeal. But in the more peaceful times of life,
when the mind is free to muse and to contem-
4 See Mr. Stuart Mill's ''Essay on Theism."
216 THE THEOLOGY OF THE IMAGINATION.
plate — when earthly beauty attracts and earthly
occupations engross — it has its appointed work.
That work is to turn the eyes upward to " be-
hold the King Himself in His beauty/' and to
light up this prosaic world with " the glory of
the land very far away."
LECTURE TIL
THE THEOLOGY OF THE CONSCIENCE.
I. — THE RELATION OF THE LINES OF SPECULATIVE AND
MORAL THEOLOGY.
II. — THE WHOLLY DIFFERENT CHARACTER OF MORAL THEO-
LOGY.
(a) IN THE FIRST CONDITIONS OF THE INQUIRY.
(b) IN PROTEST AGAINST UNLIMITED SCEPTICISM.
III. — THE TWO ACTIONS OF CONSCIENCE — THE SYNTERESIS
AND SYNEIDESIS.
IV. — THE SYNTEEESIS (OR MORAL SENSE) OF RIGnT, DUTY
RETRIBUTION.
(a) THE EVIDENCE OF ITS EXISTENCE.
(6) THE METHOD OF ITS DEVELOPMENT.
V. — ITS "WITNESS TO GOD, THROUGH
(a) THE CONSIDERATION OF ITS ORIGIN.
(6) THE SCOPE OF ITS EXERCISE.
(c) THE BASIS OF ITS AUTHORITY.
VI. — THE SYNEIDESIS, OR PRACTICAL CONSCIENCE.
(a) ITS EDUCATION BY MAN, THROUGH LAW AND
TEACHING.
(b) THE EDUCATION BY GOD THROUGH MAN.
(c) THE EDUCATION BY GOD IN THE SOUL ITSELF.
VII.— THE MYSTERY OF EVIL.
(a) ITS POWER TO WEAKEN, BUT NOT TO DESTROY,
THE WITNESS OF CONSCIENCE.
(b) ITS BEARING ON THE NEED OF REVELATION.
218 THE THEOLOGY OF THE CONSCIENCE.
" They show the work of the law written in their hearts,
their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts
the mean while accusing or else excusing one another." —
Rom. ii. 15.
Our survey of the evidences of Natural
Theology has now completed the consideration
of one chief group. To the investigation by
pure intellect of the One First Cause, and of
the Foreseeing Creator, we have added the tes-
timony of the Imagination, first by its recog-
nition of beauty, and then by its inherent
tendency to idealize and to re-create the
beauty which it thus discovers — in the world of
life more than in inorganic matter — in the
world of mind more than in mere organic life —
to the existence of a Supreme Creative Mind.
Although the imagination proceeds by a wholly
different method — the method of swift intuition
rather than gradual reasoning, — and although,
far more than the pure intellect, it affects cer-
tainly the emotional, and perhaps the moral
element of our nature, nevertheless, in kind, the
Theology of the Imagination is cognate with the
Theology of the Intellect, and leads us to the
same general result.
I. What is that result ? It is substantially
the conclusion that "there is an intelligent
Author of Nature and natural Governor of the
THE THEOLOGY OF THE CONSCIENCE. 219
World/'' * which Butler assumes in his Analogy,
before he proceeds to what is really an argu-
ment of Moral Theology, examining " the
moral government/'' which implies the moral
nature, of God, and "the moral discipline/'
which equally implies the moral freedom and
responsibility, of man. The argument of ^Eti-
ology leads us irresistibly to some First Cause,
leaving us face to face with the great alternative
of Theism and Pantheism ; although, if we re-
1 He says of it in the Introduction to the " Analogy,"
" It has been often proved by accumulated evidence ;
from this argument of Analogy and Final Causes ; from
abstract reasonings ; from the most ancient tradition and
testimony; and from the general consent of mankind."
These are clearly evidences of a different kind. The first
and second are abstract, probably "what we have called
Teleology and JEtiology; the other two are concrete,
simply embodying the fact of an universal belief in God,
without examining its grounds. Pearson, in his treatment
of Art. I. of the Apostles' Creed, bases the belief in God,
first, on the principle of Causation ; next, on the Evidence
of Design (in the course of which he anticipates Paley's
comparison of the watch) ; thirdly, on the "general con-
fession of all nations ; " fourthly, on the historical records
of Prophecy and Miracle, manifesting the Divine Action.
To these he adds the " particular remembrancer/' Con-
science in each man. On this classification the same re-
mark may be made as to the mixture of the abstract and
the concrete. I venture to think that the right order is to
start with the concrete, as a great fact, embodying the
verdict of humanity ; and then to investigate the abstract
considerations, on which that verdict is pronounced.
220 THE THEOLOGY OF THE CONSCIENCE.
cognise will as a true cause of action, the balance
inclines so considerably to the former, that
many have held this argument alone sufficient.
The argument of Teleology — all but primeval,
and, as I believe, unaffected in its essential
power by the most recent discoveries of Science
— in itself implying irrresistibly a First Cause,
adds to that inference so clear an indication of
a Creative Mind independent of its works, that,
by the confession alike of friends and foes, it
must, if admitted as real, decide the contest
unmistakably on the side of a true Theism.
In point of fact, I suppose it has been from time
immemorial the one chief intellectual evidence
of the being of a God, and of His attributes of
supreme wisdom and power. The argument
from the Imagination, still dealing with evidence
of purpose and design, connects it not with the
creation of usefulness, but with the creation of
beauty; and, thus approaching the Creative
Mind on another side, at once gives independent
testimony to His existence, and adds to His attri-
butes of power and wisdom, the attributes of
glory, beauty, majesty. It is no wonder that,
although less distinct than the line of Tele-
ology to the dry light of the understanding, this
witness of the imagination should have been in-
separably connected with all conceptions of re-
THE THEOLOGY OF THE CONSCIENCE. 221
ligion and forms of worship, which call out the
action not only of the mind, but of the con-
science and the heart. There is, even in these
lines of thought alone, a " threefold cord not
quickly broken/' Converging to one great re-
sult, they immeasurably strengthen one another.
We may well say with Butler that this result
is "proved by accumulated evidence." If, less
fortunate than he, we are not able to add that
it " does not appear to be denied by the gene-
rality" of the sceptics of our day, still we are
not afraid, in appealing to the common sense of
men (whenever they pass from the theories of
the Schools to the actual necessities of practical
life), to place the clear, solid, and definite con-
ception which it furnishes, face to face with the
vague Pantheistic theories, or the blankness of
Agnosticism, which are proposed to us as
substitutes for it.
II. But the line of argument, which in these
lectures I am attempting to work out, does not
allow me to acquiesce in this partial separation
of the group of intellectual evidences from that
moral group on which we are now to enter. I
accept willingly this combination of the con-
clusions of intellectual reasoning, as prepara-
tory to the further investigation in the moral
sphere. But I would urge that there should be
-ZU.-Z THE THEOLOGY OF THE CONSCIENCE.
reciprocity. This latter investigation may be
undertaken independently; and, if so undertaken,
it throws back its light on the earlier conclu-
sions, and adds another, perhaps a still stronger,
strand to the cord, which draws us from
vague speculation or scepticism to a definite
recognition of a Personal God. In witnessing
to us what He is, it adds another ground for
the belief that He is actually ; in disclosing His
moral nature, it implies more forcibly than ever
the true personality, to which alone such a
nature can be without absurdity attributed. It
would be (I conceive) wrong to examine and to
determine the cogency of the intellectual lines
of Natural Theology, without allowing for this
confirmation from the new moral ground.
Hitherto our lines of thought have been closely
interwoven w T ith each other. Their mutual
confirmation is that of witnesses, whose general
line of evidence is the same, although all
bear it independently, and each has its own
peculiarities of detail. Now we call our wit-
nesses from a wholly different line of evidence.
If we gain from them any confirmation of what
has gone before, it is the confirmation of a testi-
mony absolutely independent of the other, not
only in detail, but in principle.
For we pass now from the region of the in-
THE THEOLOGY OP THE CONSCIENCE. 223
tellect, or Ci Speculative Reason/' to the moral
ground of the "Practical Reason." Both the
lines of Theology which we have to consider —
the Theology of the Conscience, and the Theology
of the Affections — occupy this moral ground.
They stand in the same kind of relation to each
other as the theology of the intellect and the
theology of the imagination ; their tone (that
is) and methods are different, but their result is
substantially one. Both conscience and affection
pronounce the " categorical imperative/' with
which modern philosophy has made us familiar.
(a) Let us consider at the outset the funda-
mental difference in the question which now
presents itself to us. The intellect, in contem-
plating any object, is conscious, indeed, of itself
and of the object ; but it does not necessarily
recognise any connexion or relation between the
two. Truth shines like a star from heaven ; the
eye may gaze upon it from its solitary watch-
tower on earth. If it so gaze and discover,
well ; if it close itself agamst the light, no tie
is broken. The light shines on undimmed; our
intellectual vision has, indeed, lost an oppor-
tunity of strengthening its insight, but it re-
mains unimpaired. But besides this, we see
that to the intellect the object contemplated
may be a person or a thing, or even an abstract
2'24> THE THEOLOGY OF THE CONSCIEXCE.
principle, having no concrete reality. Since
there is no tie between us and it, its nature may
be wholly unlike our own. Hence, while the
intellect discerns some creative power, that
power may be a physical force, and not a living
person ; or, if a person, still one as absolutely
removed from us as the gods of Epicurus, too
far off or too great to care whether we recognise
and serve Him or not.
But with the Conscience or Moral Sense it is
not so. If it leads to the recognition of any
object, that object must have necessary moral
relations to us ; else Conscience has as little to do
with it, as it could have to do with the supposed
inhabitants of another planetary world. That
object must be a Personal Object ; for to talk of
the moral recognition of a Force or a For-
mula of Regularity, is simply absurd. That
object must have a moral nature ; for all moral
obligations are reciprocal, and even to a Supreme
Intelligence, if absolutely heartless, no duty on
our side could attach.
In the case, therefore, of the moral lines of
Natural Theology, the very first conditions of
our inquiry are different. With the Intellect
the recognition of some Supreme Power is all
but axiomatic; the one question is, What
is its nature ? With the Conscience the one
THE THEOLOGY OF THE CONSCIENCE. 225
question is whether it recognises the Supreme
Power at all ; if it does, the nature of that
Supreme Power follows as a thing of course. It
is possible that our moral sense may regard only
our own self and our fellow-men, knowing no-
thing of the Supreme Power. But if this is not
so, if Conscience bear any witness at all of
the Supreme Power, that Power must have a
personal being, a relation to us, and a moral
nature. The point, therefore, which is ultimate
in the investigations of the intellect, is the very
starting-point in the testimony of the Conscience;
and from that starting-point this testimony
unfolds the idea of righteousness and goodness
in God, which is but faintly indicated in the
earlier investigations.
(Jj) I may add, moreover, that it is this line
of Natural Theology, which protests most
forcibly against a lifelong scepticism, or a con-
tented Agnosticism. So long" as the under-
standing alone is concerned, these mental posi-
tions may be defended, though it is hard to
conceive how men can glory in them. But if the
moral sense testifies of even the probability of
any moral relations between us and God, then
it is bound by its very nature to be impatient,
till these relations are examined, known, and
acted upon. It cannot treat it as an open
226 THE THEOLOGY OF THE CONSCIENCE.
question, whether we have, or have not, a King*,
a Father, a Saviour. The unlimited suspension
of belief, to an intellectual student far from in-
tolerable, becomes to the servant of duty, almost
as distasteful as misdirection of belief itself. 2
III. The great question then is, Does the
Conscience realty lead us to God ? To answer it,
let us first ask, " What is the action or actions
of Conscience itself?" This Conscience is a
practical Reason. What are the principles
which, as reason, it recognises ? What are its
deductions which by reasoning it draws from
them ?
The text places the subject very clearly before
us. There is (says St. Paul) the " work of the
Law," that is, the substance of Moral Truth,
2 This is the point so gravely and frequently dwelt upon
by Butler. The duty of examining and acting upon even
imperfect evidence, and the fact that in some cases the
performance of this duty under difficulties may be our
chief moral probation, are urged by him in his "Analogy"
(part ii. chap, vi.), in a chapter which has a peculiar force
and interest, as apparently describing his own spiritual
experience. Hence the paradox, referred to by Dr. New-
man in his " Grammar of Assent," that where only two
modes of alternative action are possible, the practical
decision may be the same, whether on demonstrative or
probable evidence, whether on a high or a low probability.
The difference will lie in the amount of enthusiasm we can
throw into our actioD, and the amount of sacrifice we are
ready to make for it.
THE THEOLOGY OP THE CONSCIENCE. 227
" written on the heart/''. First, " the Conscience
bears witness to it/" that it exists ; next, in
regard to special actions "the reasoning's of
men (Xoyia/^ol) accuse or excuse one another,"
according as such actions agree or disagree with
it. These two actions of Conscience in man are
clearly distinct, though perhaps all but insepar-
able. 3 Our older Moralists called them by
different names. The recognition of moral prin-
ciples they named the ^wnqprjai^ (or " Moral
Sense"), and the application of those principles
the Sweden? (or " Practical Conscience"). Call
them by what names we will, we must be careful
to distinguish them from each other. The former
is of the nature of a " form of thought " in the
moral sphere, existing in capacity in the mind,
but worked out into actual energy, and by the
very process defined, through practical experience.
It stands to the deductions from it, as an axiom
to the propositions of Geometry, or (perhaps
3 See, for example, Sanderson, " De Obligatione Con-
scientige" (Prselectio I. 12), a book too little known and
studied; for, although too scholastic in form for modern
tastes, it is marked by singular accuracy and vigour. So
Jeremy Taylor, " Ductor Dubitantium " (book i. chap. i.
sect. 24), "The ffvvrrjprjais, or the first act of Conscience
St. Hierome calls scintillam conscientice, the spark or fire
put into the heart of man. The <rvuei8ri<Tts, which is specifi-
cally called conscience of the deed done, is the bringing
fuel to the fire."
Q2
228 THE THEOLOGY OF THE CONSCIENCE.
more properly) as a physical Law to the
consequences, theoretical or practical, derived
from it by Inductive Science. On careful dis-
tinction between the two depends all clearness
of thought on this subject.
IV. Let us examine first — what in this
argument concerns us most — the former action
of Conscience. What is the substance of Moral
Truth which it recognises ?
I answer, Right, Duty, Retribution. First,
the eternal existence of right and wrong in the
world of humanity ; next, the inherent obligation
in man, to choose the one and reject the other;
thirdly the belief in a Retribution, by which
obedience to this law or obligation is enforced,
and which has in it something more than mere
physical consequence. It does not concern us
to inquire how these fundamental ideas are
acquired. We need not examine any theoiy of
their development in man from the social
instincts of the brute creation, or of their
acquisition in full-grown humanity from the
inherited traditions of the results of an earlier
experience. We need not ask how far they may
be held to be innate in every man, and how far
impressed upon him by the teaching and tra-
dition of the race; or investigate their con-
nexion with the intellect on the one side, and
THE THEOLOGY OF THE CONSCIENCE. 229
the emotions on the other. All these questions
are full of the profoundest interest. But they
do not touch our present consideration. It is
enough for us to hold that, as a matter of fact,
these three fundamental conceptions of Right,
of Duty, and of Retribution are recognised
necessarily by the Conscience of man as
man.
(a) If it be asked why we hold this, the
appeal can only be made in answer, as St. Paul
makes it, to the consciousness of man. I am
not afraid to ask you, stranger as I am to your
life and thought, to look into your own hearts.
Can you get rid, if } t ou will, of these three
conceptions ? Whether you contemplate your
life as a whole, or consider any individual action,
which presents itself to you to-day, can you
help believing that in all actions there is a
Right — that if you can see it, you are by the
very knowledge bound to follow it — that, if you
do follow it, it will be well, and if you do not
follow it, it will be ill with you? Few men, I
firmly believe,ever fail to grasp these simple ideas,
unless indeed, they have bewildered their minds,
by confusion between " the witness of the con-
science " to those ideas themselves, and the subtle
and complicated inferences, drawn from them by
" the reasonings of men/''
230 THE THEOLOGY OF THE CONSCIENCE.
But if any individual mind does deny such
witness in itself, what shall we do ? Why not
do in this case what we do in all other cases of
perverse idiosyncrasy, 4 — appeal from the in-
dividual to the race? In the region of sense,
if a man is colour-blind, or if his ear cannot
distinguish one musical note from another, we
do not on that account believe that mankind is
wrong .in acknowledging the rich variety of
colours, and the distinctive beauty of different
musical sounds. In the region of intellect, if
a man is so unfortunate as to be unable to see
the cogency of mathematical or logical reasoning,
to appreciate the evidence of Inductive science,
or to feel the loveliness of Art, we do not on
that account hold Logic, Science, Art, to be
4 There is a close analogy between the intellectual and
moral capacities of man. In both there are such things
as dullness, perversion, imbecility. Nor does it seem
doubtful that frequently defect or excellence in the one
bears upon defect or excellence in the other. To tell " the
whole truth, and nothing but the truth," for example, de-
mands the union of intellectual and moral powers. The
Scriptural conception of a " reprobate mind," which calls
evil good and good evil, and has lost all faculty of moral
distinction, is verified, so far as human experience can
verify it, every day. How far it is inborn or acquired, the
consequence of inherited evil or of actual sin, it is often
hard to say. But, in any case, it is as " monstrous " in-
tellectual madness or imbecility.
THE THEOLOGY OF THE CONSCIENCE. 231
simple delusions. We appeal from individual
Vagary to what we call the common sense of
mankind. So in the moral sphere, we may turn
boldly to the testimony of the race., written
broadly on the languages, the laws, the institu-
tions, and the religions of the worid. If the
three principles of Right, Duty, Retribution,
are not true and dominant principles, then
all languages, which are full of the expression
of them, just in proportion to their own linguistic
excellence, must be rewritten ; all our systems
of Law, invariably professing to expound them,
must be reconstructed ; every society — whether
family, or nation, or commonwealth of nations —
living as it does mainly by moral conceptions,
must find new principles of social life ; all
religions, involving in different degrees those
moral principles, must, be pronounced simple
delusions. Securus judicat orbis terrarum ; all
these expressions of its judgment must surely
be sufficient evidence of the " substance of the
Law/' recognised by the consciousness of man.
(I/) If we ask how that consciousness forms
itself into definiteness, the answer will be, as in
all other cases, by looking within and by
looking without.
We look within ; in the determining forces of
our life, we recognise the influence of physical
232 THE THEOLOGY OF THE CONSCIENCE.
forces and of human agencies upon us ; we re-
cognise the force of our own free will, seeking*
our own happiness; but we find another real
and effective power — distinct from all physical
influence, limiting the will, claiming not onJy
power but authority — in the acknowledgment
of Right and Duty. 5 We look to the great
world without, and we trace the same powers at
work. Even in the action of the great physical
forces, men have been driven irresistibly to
endeavour to trace Moral Government, holding
this or that natural phenomenon to be a blessing
or a judgment. But — putting this reasoning
aside, not as necessarily false, but as beyond
our power . to prove whether it be false or
true 6 — we have learnt to turn to the world of
Humanity. In that world — with whatever
s This is Butler's argument in his second and third
" Sermons on Human Nature."
6 This is surely the position assigned to it by our Lord
in the oft-quoted passage (Luke xiii. 1 — 5). He does Dot
say that in the disposal of physical events there is no
moral judgment ; on the contrary, He seems to imply that
there is, by the very words " Except ye repent, ye shall all
likewise perish." But He rebukes the unauthorized and
ignorant claim to know and to reason upon supposed
especial instances of such judgments, without that pro-
phetic insight which (as in the Old Testament history or
prophecy) alone can sustain this claim. The rebuke is
substantially the same as the condemnation of the three
friends in the Book of Job.
THE THEOLOGY OF THE CONSCIENCE. Ho-
imperfections and perversions — it is as certain
that the sense of Duty and the expectation of
Retribution are great moving 1 and effective
powers, as that the sun shines, or that man
breathes. There is (as Butler urges forcibly)
a moral government visible in the necessary
action of human society/ both for its own pre-
servation and on simple moral grounds. It has
its conflicts with physical force and human
selfishness : but in that conflict it never quails
or gives place, and it shows tendency towards
a completer victory in the future. Men (I ven-
ture to repeat) could hardly have felt doubt of
this, if they had not confused — what St. Paul in
the text and our old moralists kept so carefully
apart— the witness to the sacredness of these
principles of Right, and the application of them
by reasonings of men to the actual circum-
stances and actions of life. In that application
there is no doubt a very large variety ; what is
praised in one age is denounced in another ;
what we call virtues in civilization are branded as
vices in savage life; what one thoughtful, earnest
7 See the " Analogy," part i. chap. iii. This argument
is clearly supplementary to the argument of his Sermons,
passing from the internal to the external sphere, and in
both (in accordance with the spirit of his age), proceeding
inductive'ly, from the observation of facts to the inference
of laws from them.
234 THE THEOLOGY OF THE CONSCIENCE.
man fights for as right, some other equally earnest
will stoutly resist as wrong. By vivid repre-
sentation, and by not unfrequent exaggeration,
of these discrepancies, men have bewildered
themselves upon a question which is wholly un-
touched by them. For obviously, in spite of all
these discrepancies, and as the very watchword of
all these conflicts, there remains the idea that
there is a Right if we can but find it, and that this
Right we must follow. If men ask with Pilate,
" What is truth ?'■' the very question, unless it
be a mere sarcasm, implies that Truth is. If the
world wearies itself in the inquiry, " Is this act
right or is it wrong ? " the very strife implies
that there is an eternal difference between Rig-lit
and Wrong, and that to act on that difference is
the very life of our life. The reality of this dif-
ficulty of application of Right has an important
bearing on the need and probability of Revela-
tion. But in what we are now considering we
have to do, not with it, but simply with the
universal and necessary recognition of the three
great Truths — of Right, of Duty, of Retribution.
It is of this recognition that we ask, " Does it,
or does it not, lead to God ? "
V. If that question be asked as to the matter
of fact, I suppose that, from a historical
point of view, there can be no doubt of the
THE THEOLOGY OF THE CONSCIENCE. 235
answer. The recognition of the supremacy
of Right and the obligation of Duty, has
been undoubtedly connected in the mind of
mankind at large with the belief in a Personal
God. Whenever Religion has been divorced
from Morality, it has been degraded and
smitten with death ; whenever Morality has re-
fused all connexion with Religion, it has failed
to assert itself against the power of physical
force and human selfishness. Not perhaps
more really, but certainly more plainly still, the
belief in a Retribution of Reward and Punish-
ment is inseparably connected with belief in
God. For Retribution can only come from a
Person ; and the retribution experienced at the
hands of men is clearly imperfect, even when
it is not perverted. The belief, therefore, in "a
Judge of the whole world " has been its inevit-
able corollary in fact. Whatever the consensus
of all ages and countries is worth, it can most
certainly be pleaded here.
But ought these things so to be? Is this
consensus a superstition already half-obsolete, or
does it represent a true law of thought ? To
answer this question aright, it is necessary to
consider the origin of the moral sense in man, the
scope of its action, and the basis of its authority.
(a.) First, as to the origin of the Moral
23 G THE THEOLOGY OF THE CONSCIENCE.
Sense of man. It must, of course, come from
the original Creative and Supreme Power,
whatever that may be. But no one who recog-
nises the moral element in man as something
superior to all physical force, and distinct from
the speculative reason, can accept any theory of
its derivation from an original Power, either
merely physical or even merely intellectual.
Kant was surely right when, in a passage often
quoted, he dwelt on the wonder of the starlit
heavens (that is, of the Physical Universe) as
distinct from, and at most co-ordinate with,
the wonder of the moral nature of man. Un-
less man be himself a god, self-created, self-
developed from some eternal indwelling life, the
existence of the moral nature in man, the sub-
servience of even his physical constitution to
moral ends, the distinctness of the practical from
the speculative reason, must argue a Moral
Creator. Under the power of such a Creator we
may understand how man's moral nature, like
his reason, may be a supreme development from
rudimentary brute instincts, or the result of long
inherited experience, both in the individual and
in the race. But without such a Creator these
theories of the genesis of the moral sense have no
substantial meaning. Whatever is in the effect
must be in the cause.
THE THEOLOGY OF THE CONSCIENCE. 237
I may remark that it is on the consciousness
of will in us, acting* under the sense of duty
and responsibility, often against forces able to
crush us in a moment, and against all the
motives which other men can bring* to bear
upon us, that the most vivid sense of our true
personality depends. The " Cogito ergo sum "
is felt, if not more truly at least more imme-
diately, in respect of the practical than of the
speculative reason. 8 Hence it is that (as I have
already hinted) it is by Moral Theology that
the most trenchant decision is given against the
theory of Pantheism, which must ultimately
deny all true individual personality. But it
does more than this. It will not allow us to re-
cognise even a Personal God, unless He be a
true and perfect Moral Being. The celebrated
saying of a philosopher of our day, 9 that not
even '"''the certain looking for the fiery indigna-
tion " of Hell should induce him to worship a
Being not perfectly good, is — whatever its tone
and application — in itself the expression of a
8 Whichcote expressed this tersely. " ' I act, therefore I
am,' was the memorable sentence in which, he echoed and
answered the memorable sentence of Descartes." I quote
from Professor Westcott's admirable Lecture in " Masters
in Theology" (Murray, 1877).
9 Mr. John Stuart Mill.
238 THE THEOLOGY OE THE CONSCIENCE.
right moral theology. It is, after all, but a
variation of the old question, " Shall not the
Judge and Ruler of the whole earth do right ? "
Probably it is in this conviction that a Moral
Sense implies a Moral Creator, that the first and
simplest witness of conscience to God is found.
(b.) But we pass from the past to the present,
from the origin to the daily action of that Moral
Sense. What is its scope ? "We recognise by
reason the little world of self within, the great
world of things and persons without, and some
Higher Power by which both came to be. Has
the moral sense relation to some only of these,
or to all ?
Now, in the first place, the great principles of
the Conscience have a practical relation to the
little world within. There are, I cannot doubt,
laws of Conscience, which in their perception of
Right, in their sense of Duty, in their foresight
of Retribution, are self-regarding. 1 The law of
1 To say that " virtue is unselfishness " is at best a
rough and imperfect definition ; and the theory of what has
been called " Altruism " in the " Keligion of Humanity,"
if it be considered as exhaustive, is contradictory to human
nature. The Scriptural command " to love our neighbour
as ourselves " recognises self-love, and therefore duty to
self, as natural ; while, in accordance with what is practi-
cally most necessary, it lays chief stress on love and duty
to others. Under the impulse of any great enthusiasm
these self-regarding virtues sink into abeyance j but they
THE THEOLOGY OP THE CONSCIENCE. 289
Temperance, restraining" the animal part of our
nature ; the law of Purity, cognate to it, wit-
nessed to by the instinctive sense of shame ; the
law of Manliness, by which I understand the
resolution to assert our own freedom and claim our
own sphere of action in life ; the law of Energy,
or Work, delighting in the exercise of our powers,
whether to think or to do — all belong either
solely or primarily to the inner individual life,
and are, in fact, means of its growth to per-
fection. Even if they are exemplified in actions
affecting our fellow-men, still (as we see in the
spirit of Chivalry, and what men call the sense
of honour,) they are primarily self-regarding;
they bid men not stoop to what degrades
themselves, but act " for very nobleness." If we
were altogether removed from human contact,
lost on a desert island, or self-condemned to the
loneliness of a hermitage, still, although they
would be not improbably maimed or stunted in
their development by this unnatural life, they
would exist. The mind itself is their kingdom.
reassert themselves in the quieter course of ordinary life.
If in the New Testament they are seldom enforced in them-
selves — if even the duty of temperance and purity is based
on a higher principle — this is because in the morality
of that time there was a tendency to exaggerate them,
which needed to be checked rather than stimulated. But
they naturally found their right place in the actual develop-
ment of Christian morality and life.
240 THE THEOLOGY OF THE CONSCIENCE.
But certainly this sphere of the dominion of
conscience is comparatively narrow. The sphere
of its fuller exercise is in the outer world. I may
add that probably this self- regarding Morality
is far less instinctive and original. We begin
with a sense of duty to the world without us ; •
and so, by that curious power of reflection which
recognises self as having an objective being, we
pass on to the duty to ourselves. Now, when we
speak of the outer world in this sense, we, of
course, exclude at once the inanimate world of
things. To talk of any law of Conscience in
relation to the physical forces of Nature, or to
the inanimate world itself (unless it be looked
upon as subserving some personal relations),
would be a sheer absurdity. We see at once
1hat Duty properly belongs to our relations to
Persons.
No doubt we feel some duty to beings having:
even a faint shadow of Personality, such as the
brute creatures, especially those domesticated to
our service, and developed in nature by inter-
course with man. Yet towards them our ideas
of duty are but secondary, and constantly mingled
with the consciousness of a duty to God. We
seldom separate them from Him who made them.
What we call " humanity" towards them has
been wonderfully interwoven with, and inspired
THE THEOLOGY OF THE CONSCIENCE. 241
by, the belief that they are also " God's creatures/'
and that " He made and loves them all."
Properly, therefore, I repeat, the categorical
Imperative of the law of Conscience applies
only to our relation to Persons. It has two
great Laws of Righteousness and Love; and
both, in different degrees, pre -suppose in those to
whom they are exercised, certain natural relations
to us. Where these relations do not exist, as where
the rights of personality in individuals are held
in abeyance by insanity or utter wickedness, or
where the true relations of humanity at large
are broken off by the unnatural and monstrous
condition of war, these principles cease prac-
tically to influence our conduct. Where the re-
lations to any special person are closer and more
natural than to another, there the power of this
twofold duty is intensified, and, in the event of
necessary conflict, has a right to claim predomi-
nance. The sense of Duty is, in fact, a realiza-
tion of human relations ; it is an acknowledg-
ment that man's nature is not purely individual,
and that, although we die alone, and in some
sense live alone, yet (i no man liveth or dieth to
himself."
But it is clear that man's life cannot be
regarded as confined only to these two relations
to self and to man. There is some Power in the
R
242 THE THEOLOGY OP THE CONSCIENCE.
world, and over the world, greater than either.
Can it be that the moral nature of man, his
highest and most essential characteristic, shall
practically cease to be in his relation to that
Supreme Power ? Certain it is that its capa-
cities are not fully satisfied in the relation to
self and to man. " Self- reverence, self-know-
ledge, self distrust," is a true description of the
inner life of the soul. A full self-knowledge
cannot satisfy itself without both the feelings
between which it is here placed ; and " Self-dis-
trust " is rightly placed as the climax ; the soul
looks out of itself for the perfection of its moral
life. Nor are the moral capacities of our nature
fully satisfied by the addition of the principles of
righteousness and love, so far as the} r belong to
brotherhood, and therefore imply equality and
reciprocation. There is, if I may so express
it, a large reserve of moral sense yet un-
touched, which implies — what self-distrust cries
out for — the relation of inferiority towards a
superior Being. It has its expression in re-
verence, loyalty, trust — qualities quite as natural,
quite as ineradicable, as the self-assertion of man-
liness or the righteousness of brotherhood. So
essential are they to the perfection of our nature,
that the craving for them, if it cannot find its
right outlet, manifests itself every day in morbid
THE THEOLOGY OF THE COXSCIEXCE. 243
and unreasonable developments. Without some
right direction for these elements of our moral
nature, our moral life is imperfect. But this is not
all ; it is also fall of internal contradiction and
conflict. The duty to self, and the duty to our
fellow-men as brothers, cannot indeed be really
inconsistent ; but yet very often they cannot be
reconciled, except in the light of some superior
principle harmonizing both. It is not only in
the religious life that men are perplexed how-
to " save their own souls " by seeking individual
perfection, and yet to "save the souls of others/'
by contributing theirs hare to the higher life of
humanity. If Liberty in the individual life, and
Fraternity in the corporate life, be considered in
themselves and by themselves, on the hypo-
thesis of simple Equality, all history shows them
to be hardly capable of any perfect harmony.
The soul then ought to be able to develope that
side of moral life which belongs to the relation
to a superior Being. Where shall it find the
opportunity ? Towards individuals, no doubt, in
their measure and degree — to the Father, the
Teacher, the Buler. But it is only in degree. If
we lose the conception of limitation, we have
practically to deify the man in whom we place
unlimited trust ; and then life is a series of
alternate idolatry and iconoclasm. But can we
B 2
244 THE THEOLOGY OF THE CONSCIENCE.
be satisfied with humanity at large, at the bidding*
of modern philosophy ? The idea is perhaps
more tolerable and more plausible, than the idea
of worshipping" either self or an individual man.
Yet it will not bear any thoughtful consi-
deration. For, in the first place, the conception
of humanity at large is far too abstract and
vague, and our relation to it far too distant.
Duty to humanity, accordingly, is mostly su-
perseded by duty to the actual society, of the
family, the class, or the nation, to which we
belong; for this is at least tangible in itself,
and practical in the actions to which it leads.
But, although an absolute worship has been from
time to time paid to these narrower societies,
yet in theory it is seen, and in practice found,
to be an idolatry, worshipping a defective
object, fierce and intolerant to those beyond the
pale. In the next place, it seems to be for-
gotten that, if by generalization we magnify
the good of human nature, we magnify equally
the evil. In some points it has become pro-
verbial that public opinion is shallower and
more unjust, public action more shameless, more
pitiless, more inconsistent, than the thought and
action of the individuals who make up the
society. In any case, humanity at large, like
humanity in the individual, is a deity, full
THE THEOLOGY OF THE CONSCIENCE. 245
of monstrosities and defects, incapable of claim-
ing- any absolute worship. Lastly, even were
this not so, to multiply what is finite will not
make the Infinite. Yet nothing which is finite
can possibly claim the whole heart; there will
always be a reserve of individuality, which it
cannot touch. The religion of humanity, if
it rise to a Christ, who is at once Man and
God, is intelligible; without the Christ it is
but a plausible idolatry.
What, therefore, can be more natural and
irresistible than that inference — which, as I have
said, men have always actually drawn, — re-
cognising in this moral need the witness of a
true relation to the Supreme Power over the
world. By that recognition the Moral Nature
of man finds at once the complement, and the
principle of harmony, of the other two great
modes of its action. Individuality and Brother-
hood are both realized under the conception of
a Fatherhood in God. But we observe that, the
moment this recognition is accepted, all doubts
as to the Nature of the First Cause, and
all conceptions of a mere Anima mundi are scat-
tered to the winds. The witness of Conscience, if
it be relevant at all, is to a true Personal Governor
of the world — One, who is Himself a Moral
Being, and in whom what we know as Purity
246 THE THEOLOGY OF THE CONSCIENCE.
and Righteousness and Love have their perfec-
tion — One, therefore, whose government is
essentially Moral. What the understanding
by much reasoning concluded, the Conscience
realizes with instinctive certainty.
(c.) But we must go further still. To the
witness to God from the origin and scope of
action of the Moral Sense, we must add what is
a distinct, and, perhaps, a plainer and more
intelligible witness still — the consideration of
the basis of Morality itself.
I have spoken of the power of Conscience only
as one of the powers which actually rule
Humanity, side by side with physical force,
with the dominion of man, with the selfishness
of merely individual will. So far the simplest
observation can lead us. But this is, as we
know, far below what Conscience claims. It
has (as Butler puts it) " authority as well as
power. - " The actual strength of appetite, driv-
ing the will to physical gratification, may be
great — so great as to rule the soul like a de-
moniacal possession. The passions of love and
hatred, hope and fear, may sweep over the waters
of the soul like a strong and steady wind, or like
the sudden irresistible gusts of a hurricane.
The power of men over us, acting either by com-
pulsion or by persuasion, by individual ascend-
THE THEOLOGY OF THE CONSCIENCE. 247
ancy, or by the spirit of the age, is always a
considerable/ and is frequently a tyrannical
power. But the still small voice of Conscience
is recognised as entirely unlike these, not in
degree, but in kind. They can at most say
" You must." Conscience alone can take up
the higher language of "You ought." Now
what is the basis of such authority ? As a rule
we hardly question its reality in theory, even if
we disobey it in practice. But if it be asked,
" Why should I obey Conscience rather than
appetite or passion, the voice of man or the
dictates of self-love ? " — some answer must be
given ; and I firmly believe that no answer can
be given, which is satisfactory and complete,
excepting the old answer, " Because Conscience
is the Voice of God."
Glance for a moment at the teaching of the
two great Schools of simple Moralists on this all-
important subject.
There is the School of the Intuitionists, which
boldly says, " The Voice of Conscience carries
its own witness with it. Its authority is a
fundamental law of your nature, recognised, as
the eye recognises light, or the intellect accepts
a mathematical axiom."
The answer (I cannot doubt) has a grand truth
in it, but it is obviously an imperfect answer.
248 THE THEOLOGY OF THE CONSCIENCE.
I cannot, indeed, think that it is open to the
simple denial which some give it. A man may
say" I personally cannot recognise such authority.
To me it is non-existent. Even were it other-
wise, I should not be satisfied with a merely in-
dividual judgment, which might be a delusion.
I ask for a general answer, aprjlying not to you
or to me, but to the whole race of man." But
to this objection a not unsatisfactory reply may
be given (as I have already suggested 2 ) by an
appeal from the individual to the collective witness
of humanity, as embodied in the languages and
institutions of the world. Still the answer,
though right so far as it goes, must be confessed
to be imperfect. At best, it does but say this
Moral Supremacy is a law of the individual
nature. The question still remains " Whence
comes that law, and what does the existence of
such a law imply ?"
Turn then to the rival School of Utilitarianism,
and hear its answer, " Obey Conscience, because
such obedience will produce Happiness.'" In
olden days that answer took a selfish form, and
Happiness then meant the individual happiness
of the doer. In our own days it has assumed a
nobler and a grander phase. Happiness now
means the happiness of the race. As a prac-
2 Sec pp. 229—231.
THE THEOLOGY OF THE CONSCIENCE. 249
tical rule, perhaps, it has purchased this noble-
ness at the expense of some vagueness and
difficulty of conception, and of the necessary ex-
clusion of any life beyond the grave. But we
are concerned now with the answer in general.
Of it, again, we must say unhesitatingly, that,
while it must be acknowledged as containing
truth, it is manifestly an imperfect answer. For
what does it mean ? It means simply that the
law, whatever it is, which guides the outward
circumstances of the world, is in accord with
the law of our individual moral nature. "Why it
is so in accord, and what such accordance must
imply, it cannot tell.
I have spoken here simply of the theoretic
imperfection of these answers. But it ought to
be added that, in respect of practical efficiency,
that imperfection is more marked still. The
appeal to individual intuition — how hard it is
to maintain it, in the face of the consciousness
of our own fallibility, when strong temptation
assails the soul, or when the voice of men
bids us follow the multitude ! The appeal
to the hope of happiness, if it be our
own individual happiness, can hardly fail to
lower the moral tone and impair the noble
simplicity of Conscience ; if it be the happiness
of the race, how utterly vague, shadowy, uncer-
250 THE THEOLOGY OF THE CONSCIENCE.
tain, . it seems, in the presence of nearer and
more vivid motives !
But let us put this aside, and look at the answer
simply in theory. We must see that each goes
but a little way, and suggests an answer more
ultimate than itself.
The conception of an inherent law in man's
nature undoubtedly means a manifestation in
man's nature of the working of the Supreme
Power, which brought man into being. Think
what this means. As the existence of the Moral
Sense points (as w r e have seen) to a Moral
Creator, so its authority, as the dominant force in
our nature, argues certainly that the purpose of
Creation was predominantly moral ; and can
hardly fail to lead to the further inference, that
among the Attributes of His Nature, so far as
we can understand them, the Moral Attributes
of Righteousness, Love, Holiness, are supreme.
To say that the Supremacy of Conscience is an
inherent law of Man's Being is simply to say
that the Moral Sense is the highest expression
in us of the Will of the Supreme Creator. It
infers necessarily the existence of a God, who is
above all things a Righteous God.
But take the answer of the Utilitarian in
either phase. What is it, after all, except a
partial and vague expression of the old belief
THE THEOLOGY OF THE CONSCIENCE. 251
in a .Retribution, a Moral Government of
God ? It is difficult to know why we should
stop half-way in the natural inference, and in
the name of philosophy substitute for the old
language, which at least is intelligible, the
profession of belief in an " Eternal Something,
not ourselves, which makes for Righteousness/''
For no mere thing — no impersonal Law or
physical Force — can " make for/' that is, can
sustain and provide for, the power which most
distinctly implies personality, in the being who
exercises it, and in the beings toward whom it
is exercised. Hence, to say that obedience to
the Moral Law leads to happiness is ultimately
to say that there is over the world the sove-
reignty of a Personal Being, whose Will is the
righteousness of His creatures, and whose
government is directed to the working out of
righteousness in them.
The more we use plain words, and go to the
root of the matter, the more we shall find that
of the two answers of the Intuitionist and
Utilitarian Schools, neither excludes the other,
because neither contains the whole truth.
Both really meet in the Faith, which finds the
basis of the authority of Conscience in the Will
of a Righteous God, at once impressed on our
individual nature, and worked out in the history
2o2 THE THEOLOGY OF THE CONSCIENCE.
of the "World. The answer of the Intuitionist
carries on the inference already drawn from the
existence of the moral sense in us ; the answer
of the Utilitarian harmonizes with the view
which we have been led to take of the full scope
of its action ; and both these lead us to God.
Nor ought it to be altogether omitted that this
theory of a basis of the authority of Conscience
in the Will and Nature of God is a theory,
wdiich, unlike the others taken alone, will work.
It comes home to the simplest instincts of the
child, as it certainly satisfies the philosophic
craving for what is general and absolute. It
appeals to the reason in its calmest thoughtful-
ness ; yet it can curb the wildest excitement of
passion. Effectiveness undoubtedly is in itself
no sufficient evidence of truth. But in a matter
essentially practical, ineffectiveness may well
create a presumption of falsehood. It is no
slight secondary consideration, whether a theory
will or will not prove itself operative on the mass
of men, the many workers as well as the few
thinkers. The basis of right in the Will of
God has shown this power to work for centuries.
No other theory has yet found strength to take
its place.
Looking, therefore, to the general action of
Conscience — the Synteresls — I cannot but think
THE THEOLOGY OF THE CONSCIENCE. 253
that examination shows how true has been that
all but universal inference of man, which has
connected the ■ recognition of its truth and
authority with the acknowledgment of a Living
and Righteous God. The three lines of inquiry
into the origin, the scope, the basis of the
Moral Sense, are in great degree independent :
for a man may speculate on its origin without
examining its scope, or he may examine the
scope of its action as a real power, without
inquiring into the basis of its supreme authority.
But their results are identical; and so their
combined witness tells on the mind with almost
irresistible power.
VI. But from this — to my mind the more
important branch of the subject — let us turn to
the other action of Conscience — the Spieidesis —
which is the application of the Moral Sense
to the actions of daily life. It starts with the
fundamental ideas of Bight, Duty, Retribution,
and asks of any contemplated action, " Is this
right ? Is it a part of my duty to do it ? If I
do it, will it be well, or ill, with me ? " These
are what the text calls " the reasonings of men,
accusing or excusing one another." In them
we pass from the abstract to the concrete. It
is, indeed, through these concrete experiences
that the abstract principle is at once defined
254 THE THEOLOGY OF THE CONSCIENCE.
and educated. For here, as in all other lines of
thought, we start, indeed, with a vague instinc-
tive sense of the general principle ; but yet it
is only through these special experiences that we
come to a clear and definite conception of this
principle itself. Now in the consideration of
the particular applications of Conscience, we
depart from the simplicity of universal agree-
ment, striking out into directions, varying
according to time, place, age, and individual cha-
racter, with a diversity, which the actual varia-
tions of formulated laws can but faintly repre-
sent; we pass from axiomatic truths to practical
deductions from them, in which lie all but
infinite liabilities to error. In all these detailed
individual experiences, is there, or is there not,
a sense of " God with us w ?
It is certain that this mental process is not
self-evolved and self-contained. It is a moral
"education;" and education implies at once
something to be drawn out from within, and
some external power which draws it out. But
any power acting directly upon the Conscience
must have the character of Personality. Possibly,
in the expectation of Retribution, so far as it is
only a vague kind of understanding that the
course of Nature is so ordered to give scope for
action obedient to Conscience,and to hinder or cut
THE THEOLOGY OF THE CONSCIENCE. 255
short the action which defies it, we may be
content with " a stream " or " a tendency." But
— not to mention that this is but an inadequate
description of all that the idea of Retribution
implies — it is certain that this cannot be the
case, in respect of the purer and higher declara-
tions of the Moral Sense, dealing not with the
consequences, but with the qualities, of actions.
If we are taught or guided in them, it must be
a higher Moral Sense than our own, and this
can belong only to a Personal Being.
(a.) Now, whatever we may suppose to be
theoretically possible in a human being, growing
up alone on a desert island, yet, as a matter of
general fact, the moral sense in each individual
is in part educated by just such a personal power
— the power of his fellow-men. From our first
moments of consciousness that power acts upon
us in two chief ways, — through the coercive
power of law, and through the spiritual power
of teaching, whether by word, or example, or
personal ascendancy. The two powers are
almost always co-existent, although mingled in
different proportions. In fact, on their coexist-
ence in right proportion the welfare of humanity
depends. Law, even where it is simply coercive,
implies the existence of the principles which it
is the task of teaching to enforce, by pro-
266 THE THEOLOGY OF THE CONSCIENCE.
fessing to be based on rights known to those
under it ; and, in point of fact, if we consider
law in all its developments/ it is not merely
coercive, but has a directive and didactic ele-
ment interwoven with it. Teaching, on the
other hand, seldom deals with men without some
reference to a retributive power of law, to en-
force attention and to avenge neglect ; for, man
being what he is, " discipline," which is pro-
perly the " system of learning/' all but invari-
ably implies some idea of coercion or retribution.
But the two elements are mingled in very dif-
ferent proportions. In the early days of child-
hood, law predominates; and even the didactic
influence, coexistent with law, is largely an
appeal, not to conscience and reason, but to
faith. In manhood, the work of the law as "a
schoolmaster" is, or ought to be, over; the
didactic power takes the chief place ; only if the
spiritual influence be defied, does law come in, to
scourge man for his chastisement, or to take him
3 The law of our domestic and educational life, for ex-
ample (which, after all, tells on the mass of men at least
as powerfully as the law of the civil community), always
involves the didactic and disciplinary element, and often
makes it the leading element of its system. The force of
public opinion, while it should be a purely didactic force,
is constantly a law, not unfrequently an oppressive law ;
yet it always professes to retain, and mostly does retain,
a didactic element.
THE THEOLOGY OF THE CONSCIENCE. 257
out of the way of others. By both the individual
Conscience is educated ; and the results of edu-
cation necessarily vary according both to the
capacity of the individual soul, and to the actual
character of the educating influences. We are
familiar, therefore, with two actions of Will,
brought to bear on us from without, — the reward
and punishment by law, and the presentation of
truth and right to the perception of Conscience.
Under both we are sensible that our freedom and
responsibility remain ; under both, in a natural
condition of things, our Conscience is informed,
strengthened, developed.
Now, with regard to this process of moral
education by the conscious action of our fellow-
men upon us, two questions suggest themselves,
— What does it imply ? Is it the only edu-
cating force ?
(b.) What does it imply ? It is evidently a
law of human nature, just as truly as the exist-
ence of the moral sense in the individual; and,
if so, it must be a part of the government of the
world by the Higher Power, whatever it-be, by
which that world was made and is sustained.
Butler traces in it, accordingly, a " Moral
Government of God," intended for " the Moral
discipline of man." 4 His conclusion, strong in
4 See "Analogy/' part i. chap. iii. sect. v. His line of
s
258 THE THEOLOGY OF THE CONSCIENCE.
itself, is brought out with still greater force,
when we consider — what will be more fully
brought out in the next Lecture — that this
moral education is chiefly exercised through the
existence of natural relations (as of parentage,
brotherhood, marriage) on which the physical
propagation of the race depends, and of those
social relations of political or religious life, with-
out which civilization is impossible. For this
shows that it is a part of the system of the
world as a whole, by which the purely physical
forces of organic life and the spiritual powers of
moral being are harmonized together under one
supreme law. The existence of such a moral
government must be surely another indication
of a true Moral Governor. In and through this
education by man it is He who is the true
Educator.
(<?.) But is this our only moral education?
Clearly not : it touches man on the social side
of his nature ; but there is in him an individu-
ality, never so deeply felt as in relation to moral
action. What shall we say of this? It would
appear that it has another education of the same
argument leads him to dwell almost entirely on the co-
ercive side of government; but it is equally applicable
to the other and more spiritual element of human in-
fluence.
THE THEOLOGY OF THE CONSCIENCE. 259
twofold kind, by action of law and by spiritual
action.
There is an action by law upon us, in the fact
(which again Butler has pointed out) that this
life, in its physical conditions, and in those
actions of men which are not intended to affect
us, " is peculiarly fit to be a state of moral dis-
cipline."" 5 There is much which, through our
appetites and passions, must tempt us, with a
temptation apparently necessary for our moral
growth. There are what common language
instinctively and rightly calls " punishments"
of our evil-doing, proceeding from physical con-
ditions, from the course of human life in itself,
irrespective of all conscious dealing of men with
us, and from the constitution of our nature. All
these indicate an education of us by a law, dis-
tinct from all human law, often acting exactly
where human law fails. Now such education
implies a personal agency ; yet that agency is
not of man. What can it be but the agency of
a true Moral Governor of the world?
But we cannot stop here. There is again an
experience, of which all human literature is full,
which has embodied itself in the tenets of all
human religions, especially in their advanced
5 See " Analogy," part i. chap. v. sect. iv.
260 THE THEOLOGY OF THE CONSCIENCE.
stages. It is the experience, so strikingly ex-
pressed in the 139th Psalm, of a Voice in the
sonl and yet not of the soul itself, u searching
it out,-" " knowing its thoughts long before,"
i( spying out all its ways," " trying it to the
very ground of the heart/'' " looking if there be
any way of wickedness in it." What is that
Voice ? I cannot do better than quote a striking
passage from the lectures of my predecessor.
The Psalmist (he says) " felt that an influence
which acted upon him individually and personally
must be individual and personal itself. Probably
he had no speculative ideas as to what personality
was. But he knew that it dealt with him in a
way to which there was nothing analogous, ex-
cept the way in which living persons dealt with
him. It praised and it blamed ; it was not like
a law, acting without reference to his special
peculiarities, but it adapted its operation with
infinite variety to all the varying shades of right
and wrong, of error or of weakness, within him.
In a word, it was just as personal as he was.
As a heart answers to heart, and the face of man
to man, so did that Power, which was felt in
his conscience, correspond to his own nature." 6
6 See Professor Waco's "Boyle Lectures" for 1875;
Lecture II. (p. 202 of first edition) . I gladly take the op-
portunity of expressing my obligations through the whole
THE THEOLOGY OF THE CONSCIENCE. 26]
There are, I know, minds to which such expe-
rience is altogether unknown, and may appear
fantastic. But I believe them to be exceptional ;
I doubt whether they are the highest minds. In
any case I may claim a large experience in this
matter, written in the poetry, the religion, often
the philosophy of the world ; and I may note
that it especially belongs to the great crises of
life, when the human guidance fails us, or — still
worse — contradicts the conscience within. Per-
haps in it, most of all experiences, we hear the
voice of a present God. We do not argue about
it, or speculate on it as probable ; we know
Him, really teaching, commanding, inspiring,
as a Father His children. Again and again the
words of the Patriarch rise to our lips, " I have
heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear, but now
mine eye seeth Thee."
Perhaps it is in the craving for this Divine
guidance, and the conviction that in some measure
it is given, that most of all we feel at once the need
and hope of what we call properly " Revelation"
— a clear Word of God, to scourge what is evil
in us by its terrors, to inspire what is good in us
by the simple power of its truth. " Teach me, O
Lord, the way of Thy statutes," is the natural
of this branch of my subject to his treatment of Moral
Theology.
262 THE THEOLOGY OE THE CONSCIENCE.
cry of any soul conscious of God. The New
Testament tells us that it is not left unanswered.
The first office of the Holy Spirit to " the world/'
preparatory to His fuller enlightenment of the
Church of Christ, is said to be "to convince'-'
the soul of the three great moral principles of
" sin, righteousness, and judgment" as present
practical realities. 7 Nor can we forget that in
Holy Scripture the first great Revelation of God
to Israel is in the Ten Commandments, enforcing
on the soul the rudiments of righteousness ;
as the first recorded teaching of the Lord Jesus
Christ in the Sermon on the Mount is designed
to exalt and spiritualize the Moral Law, bringing
it home to the spirit, not by compulsion but by
conviction, not by fear but by love. But of this
it is not yet the time to speak, except to note
how the special Revelation recognises the capa-
city of such twofold education in the human
conscience by the outward Law and by the in-
ward power of the Spirit; and how, as always,
7 See John xvi. 8, 13, " He shall convince the world of
sin, of righteousness, and of judgment He shall
guide you into all the truth." It is true that the convic-
tion of the world is here viewed with a distinct reference
to the knowledge of our Lord Himself, and therefore to a
conversion to Him. But it is with the general method of
action of the Holy Spirit on the heart, not with its special
object, that we are here concerned.
THE THEOLOGY OP THE CONSCIENCE. 263
it brings out, in special and supernatural clear-
ness, the work which goes on veiled and diffused
in the natural system.
As, then, in the origin, scope, and basis of the
power of Conscience, so also in its practical
education, we find distinct traces of a Moral
Governor of the world, patent to the simplest,
yet growing clearer and clearer as they are
examined in thought. How they have written
themselves on human language and literature,
how they have embodied themselves in the reli-
gions of the world, all history shows.
VII. I believe that this witness of Conscience
to God, at once in the great principles of Moral
Truth, and in the application of them to the
needs and acts of every day, is itself so strong,
that it would be fairly irresistible, were it not
for the presence of the great mystery of moral
evil in the world. It is here that the real stress
of difficulty lies. It is true that there is some-
thing also of perplexity in the imperfection of
Retribution in this life, so constantly dwelt upon
in all human literature, but nowhere, perhaps,
more vividly and resolutely depicted than in the
Psalms and the Book of Job. The indiscriminate
action of all physical powers, the imperfect and
often perverted dealings of humanity with good
and evil, the apparent want in some lives of all
264 THE THEOLOGY OF THE CONSCIENCE.
scope and opportunity of moral growth — all
these are felt at all times to be an obscuration
of the Moral Government of God; and when they
touch ourselves, or those dear to us as our own
soul, they become a thick darkness. Yet still
they can be borne. We can confess our necessary
ignorance of the whole counsel of God, which
leaves us in life partly to knowledge, partly to
faith. We can fall back on the belief in a per-
fect equity of Judgment, under which what
seerri s indiscriminate is really discriminated, and
understand that what is evil to one man is good
to another. We can often catch glimpses of a
Divine purpose of discipline, — " Whom the Lord
loveth He chasteneth." We can look beyond
the grave to a perfect Ketribution, in a life for
which this life is but a brief preparation, and so
think little of "the light affliction which is but
for a moment.-''' But the one thing which is an
intolerable perplexity is the existence of moral
evil in the w r orld.
The existence of an inborn tendency to evil in
man is no doctrine of Christian Revelation. It
is a terrible fact ; which it seems strange that
any one can doubt, who studies human nature,
whether in the growth of a child's character, or
in the history of the world at large, as it was and
as it is. The shallow optimism, through which
THE THEOLOGY OF THE CONSCIENCE, 265
some have tried to deny or extenuate its ex-
istence, or to refer it to mere defects of physical,
political, and social machinery, vanishes before
deeper thought. The idea found in all con-
sistent Pantheism, that evil is a lower form
of good — both being parts of the Divine essence,
expressed in the system of the universe — is
repudiated by the indignant witness of Con-
science within us. These theories unhappily
live in the practice which is " the way of
the world/'' But they cannot stand formal
investigation. Speculation accordingly, now,
just as in the old Gnostic days, falls back,
in the effort to account for Evil, on Dualism
in one or other of its forms — now taking up
the Manichean idea of two rival Deities, now
fancying a Creator, limited in power by
some force marring His perfect work. It
will not now shrink from St. Paul's awful
description of "a law " of evil within ; on
the contrary, it will even exaggerate its dark-
ness. Nor will it deny that evil is in some sense
" sin/' — that is, a resistance to some higher
law that rules the world. But it asks, sorrow-
fully or scornfully, How can this be under an
Almighty and All-Righteous God ?
(a.) What shall we say ? We shall, I think,
frankly acknowledge that the mystery of evil is
266 THE THEOLOGY OF THE CONSCIENCE.
to us simply insoluble. We can, indeed, see
that this capacity of evil is as closely con-
nected with the mystery of free-will, on which
man's high dignity and capacity of goodness
depend, as the shadow with the light. We can
see that the development of this capacity of
evil is a perversion of the probation, needed for
the growth of the moral nature, and ordained for
its growth in goodness. We must therefore re-
solutely repudiate the Dualistic conceptions,
which seem to exchange what is mysterious for
what is intellectually and morally incredible.
Whatever is must fall under the "first Law
Eternal " s of God's Providence, even if it con-
tradict the {( Second Law Eternal " which he
gives to His creatures. But we confess it still
" an offence ; " we can understand how men even
desire to surrender or deny freedom, in order to
avoid it. We freely acknowledge that its exis-
tence weakens the testimony of Conscience,
otherwise irresistible, to the All Righteous and
Almighty God. It cannot be His will ; how it
can be by His permission even for a moment,
we cannot tell. The great Apostle of the Gentiles
ventures only on a " what iff of mere sugges-
tion f his Master and ours has revealed nothing.
See Hooker, Ecc. Pol. I. ii., iii. 9 See Rom. ix. 22—24.
THE THEOLOGY OF THE CONSCIENCE. 267
But we shall boldly declare that, although it
weakens the moral witness, it is far indeed from
destroying it. For we shall first contend (as all
the noblest human thought has consciously
asserted, and unconsciously implied in a thou-
sand ways) that Righteousness and Truth do
prevail over evil and falsehood historically, and
that their prevalence shows the force of evil to
be an exceptional and disturbing power, not the
true law of human life. We shall urge next,
that, if this rebellion thwarts in some of its
aspects the development of good, yet, like all
rebellions, it tends in other aspects to bring out
and intensify loyalty to good, and give it a
field of triumph. We shall still more emphati-
cally plead, that, while the existence of sin
weakens the moral witness, yet that the sense of
sin, as sin — present even in the hour of evil-
doing, but asserting itself with 'tenfold power in
the subsequent hours of repentance or remorse
— goes far towards undoing the evil, strength-
ening, to an intensity which is even agony, the
witness of Conscience, and investing it with
the sombre majesty of an avenging spirit. For,
not from theory but from fact, we believe that
sense of sin as sin is ineradicable from the
human soul. In its hours of deeper reflection
it is not satisfied with the recognition of evil,
2GS THE THEOLOGY OF THE CONSCIENCE.
as " Vice/'' against ourselves, or as " Crime "
against our fellow-men. Looking up to the
Supreme Power, it cries out with the Psalmist,
" Against Thee only have I sinned, and done
this evil in Thy sight." Whether in so crying
out it simply feels the horror of sin, or adds to
this feeling the expectation of Retribution, in
either case the hour of practical trial scatters the
theories and doubts of leisurely speculation, and
bids the soul recognise not a " Law/' or a
" Something," but a true Personal God. Nor
shall we fail to add, lastly, that the conception of a
Future Life, wherever it is held even as a pro-
bable hypothesis, invariably includes the belief
that this resistance of evil is but temporary —
a cloud overshadowing only the early morning
of man's whole being, destined to vanish away
in the cloudless sunshine of the Hereafter.
(b.) All this we shall plead, and in it we may
stand, cast down but not despondent, under the
shadow of this presence of evil. But we shall
acknowledge that, here above all, we look for the
light of a Revelation from God. If there be
what claims to be such a Revelation, we shall in
great degree test it by its power to grapple
practically with that awful fact of sin. It may
not tell us why sin is : but, if it does not tell us
how sin may be conquered, both for the indi-
THE THEOLOGY OE THE CONSCIENCE. 209
vidual and the race, how it is over-ruled by the
great dispensation of God, we shall conclude
that it is not a Gospel to such a world as this.
Christianity, as I need hardly remind you,
accepts and stands the test. Its power (as St.
Augustine reminds us 1 ) turns upon the fact
that in it we find what the noblest philosophies
cannot give us — the knowledge of the acceptance
of " a humble and contrite heart/' and the in-
vitation to sin-worn and sin-darkened souls,
" Come unto Me, and I will give you rest."
Still, therefore, the witness of Conscience to
God sounds on, saddened but not silenced by the
mystery of evil. Compared with the other forms
of witness, of which I have spoken, it stands out
in its clear, trenchant simplicity and in its wide
universality. In virtue of the one it cuts like
a trumpet-tone through all the din of specu-
1 See the well-known passage in his " Confessions " (vii.
21), where he speaks of that which the highest philosophy
lacked:—" Non habent illae paginse lacrymas con-
fessionis, sacrificium tuum . . . arrham Spiritus Sancti,
poculumpretiinostri. Nemo ibi cantat : Nonne Deo subdita
erit anima mea t Ab ipso enim salutare meum. . . . Nemo ibi
audit vocantem : Venite ad me, qui laboratis Aliud
est de silvestri cacumine videre patriam pacis, et itex* ad
earn non in venire, et frustra conari per inria . . . . et aliud
tenere viam illuc ducentem, curia cselestis Imperatoris
munitam."
270 THE THEOLOGY OP THE CONSCIENCE.
lative controversy, and through the clamour of
passion and appetite, when the vaguer and more
complex music of the intellect and the imagina-
tion would be drowned. In virtue of the other,
it comes home, not to the few abstract thinkers,
but to the many hard workers and patient
sufferers of life. In itself that witness might
seem too stern and terrible, were it not that
there is added to it, in the Theology of Love,
which we have next to contemplate, a sweeter
persuasiveness of tone. But even in its stern-
ness, how infinitely precious it is ! Better this
darkness of a Sinai, out of which sounds the
voice of Law, and out of which flash the light-
nings of Judgment, than the ignoble ease of a life,
spent over the flesh-pots of physical indulgence
or in the worldly slavery of Egypt, as if there
were nothing higher, grander, more awful, for
man. Better the solemn voice within, which
tells of sin, righteousness, and judgment, than
the silence of moral ignorance, or the bewilder-
ment of a thousand earthly voices, calling the
soul away from itself and from God.
LECTURE VIII.
THE THEOLOGY OF THE AFFECTIONS.
I. — THE EXISTENCE OF A TRUE THEOLOGY OF LOVE.
II. — THE PRINCIPLE OF LOVE LIKE THE PRINCIPLE OF
RIGHTEOUSNESS
(a) IN ITS DIRECTION TO A PERSONAL OBJECT.
(b) IN ITS ATTACHMENT TO MORAL QUALITIES.
III. — THE PECULIAR CHARACTERISTIC OF LOVE IS ITS WIT-
NESS (THROUGH SYMPATHY) TO UNITY OF NATUEE
BETWEEN THE SUBJECT AND OBJECT.
IY. — THE "WITNESS TO GOD OF THE GENERAL PRINCIPLE
OF LOVE IN RESPECT OF —
(a) ITS ORIGIN.
(b) ITS SCOPE.
(c) ITS BASIS IN UNITY OF NATURE.
V. — THE SIGNIFICANCE IN THIS RESPECT OF —
(a) LOVE TOWARDS MAN.
(b) LOVE TOWARDS GOD.
VI. — THE THEOLOGY OF LOVE IN RELATION TO THE MYS-
TERY OF EVIL.
VII. — THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE PROVISION FOR THE
EDUCATION OF LOVE, THROUGH MAN, AND DIRECTLY
BY GOD.
VIII.— SUMMARY OF RESULTS.
He that loveth not, knoweth not God ; for God is love."
— 1 John iv. 8.
272 THE THEOLOGY OF THE AFFECTIONS.
We pass from the consideration of that Moral
Sense, which declares Righteousness, to dwell
on that second Moral Sense, which expresses
itself in Love. I interpret the text in what
seems to me a plain deduction from its literal
sense — as declaring to us that the Natural
Theology, through which the soul feels after and
finds God, is so imperfect as hardly to lead to
anything deserving to be called knowledge, un-
less to the intellectual witness of the Under-
standing and Imagination, we add, not only the
Theology of the Conscience, but also the Theology
of the Affections. " He that loveth not," —
although he may think deeply on Truth, and
thirst earnestly after Righteousness — " knoweth
not God."
I. But, before we investigate the points of
resemblance and contrast between what I thus
designate as the two lines of Moral Theology,
it may possibly appear necessary to inquire,
whether there is such a thing in the abstract as
a true Theology of Love ?
I can easily imagine how readily the idea
may suggest itself to the mind, that while Love
is a potent element in the practical life and
sentiment of religion, and in the knowledge
which is gained thereby, it can contribute little
or nothing to the abstract witness of Theology.
THE THEOLOGY OP THE AFFECTIONS. 273
Affection, indeed, is often thought to be too
vague, too blind, too merely instinctive, to bear
any such definite witness of God, as may stand
the examination of reason. There are, therefore,
many who maintain that Love should be utterly
banished from the mind, as a dangerously dis-
turbing influence, until by painful and thought-
ful search of Reason, God be found and known
— with the compensating promise, that, when
lie is known, then Love shall be recalled from
exile, and allowed to pour out the whole soul at
His feet. It is my first object, therefore, to
protest against this tendency to ignore or to
deny the claim of the affections to aid in the
search after God. Surely analogy itself suggests
that we should at least pause, before we reject
that claim. In the process of the knowledge
of man, love plays a most important part.
Sympathy undoubtedly gives a certain insiglt
into human nature, denied to a passionless
intellect and even to a cold stern sense of duty.
Accordingly if the maxim, " He that loveth not,
knoweth not man," is the verdict of all true
Science of Man, there may be some reason to
accept the maxim, " He that loveth not, knoweth
not God," as the verdict of all true Theology.
Our conclusion on this subject must depend
on our view of the true character of the prin-
T
274 THE THEOLOGY OF THE AFFECTIONS.
ciple of Love itself. Modern thought — pro-
bably (be it remarked in passing) , under the
guidance of Christianity — has certainly out-
grown the old Pagan notion of Love, as a merely
instinctive and irrational force in man. It is (for.
example) almost a commonplace to remark that
the philosophical language of the Greek and
Latin moralists has no adequate expression for
the abstract principle of Love, so well known to
us in all modern schools of morality. 1 It is even
more than true that, the appreciation of Truth,
the feeling of Beauty, and the sense of Right,
it begins in mere instinct; and that this in-
stinct is plainly akin to the instinct of brute
creatures, and may assert itself without any
1 Of the words ipws and cpiMa, for example, the one
involves the idea of individual passion, the other the idea
of personal friendship. The word 'Aydirr] is not a classical
word. The utter absence of any recognition of Love as a
cardinal virtue in Plato's " Republic " is well known. The
greatest blot on that noble work is connected with a
degrading view of personal love, as a mere appetite, sub-
servient to the physical propagation of the race. In what
has been called proverbially " Platonic affection " it is
most instructive to notice how the highest idea of har-
mony of kindred souls trembles constantly on the verge of
the^exhibition of the basest passion. The regeneration of
the " old commandment from the beginning " to become
"a new commandment," exalted, enlarged, and denned in
principle, is unquestionably an achievement of Chris-
tianity.
THE THEOLOGY OP THE AFFECTIONS. 275
relation, or even in a relation of antagonism, to
the dictates of Reason and Conscience. It is
probably true, that, even more than the other
co-ordinate principles of human nature, Love
grows in man by practice rather than by theory.
Nothing is more certain than that beneficence
is at once the effect and the cause of benevolence :
perhaps in no respect is the influence of habit so
remarkable, as in its power to deepen and in-
tensify either love or hatred. But while these
things are true, yet it is equally true, that Love
is capable of being so impregnated by reason, as
to assume the form of a settled rational prin-
ciple in the soul, and to prove itself one of the
strongest and most continuous of the forces
which rule society. On the most sacred of all
authorities, we hold the Love of our neighbour to
be like the Love of Self. Hence, as in Self- Love
there is an instinct of self-preservation and self-
gratification, capable of being developed by reason
into a settled rational desire of our own true
happiness ; so the Love, which looks beyond self,
may begin in the instinct of natural and social
•affections, but is capable of rising, as it does
rise every day, into a lofty rational principle. 2
2 It should be almost unnecessary to refer to Butler's
Sermons on this subject — the first Sermon on " Human
Nature" and the Sermon on the " Love of our Neighbour."
276 THE THEOLOGY OF THE AFFECTIONS.
Men may perhaps doubt whether it is as an in-
stinct or as a principle,, that it acts most effec-
tively to balance or overbear this natural love of
self. But it is as a principle that it throws light
on the great problem of Being; it is as a prin-.
ciple that it enters into the field of Theology.
II. Now, as we examine the principle of Love,
we shall be struck at once by a similarity in
its main characteristics to the principle of Con-
science, which argues for it a right to be con-
sidered as a true Moral Sense.
(a.) Thus, first, in all its forms it tends only
to a personal object. Except by association and
symbolism, we cannot love a thing : except by
metaphor, we cannot be said to love an abstract
principle. It is curious to observe that, even in
these cases, the growth of affection leads in-
stantly to personification, and to note how the
tendencies to love and to personify live and die
together, whether we watch the play of a child
with its toys, or study the bursts of poetic en-
thusiasm over the glories and wonders of Nature.
It is notable that, as we approach actual person-
ality, Love shows itself more and more dis-
But, while the "Analogy" is constantly studied, the Ser-
mons, which are closely connected with it, and in some
cases introductory to it, do not receive the attention they
deserve.
THE THEOLOGY OP THE AFFECTIONS. 277
tinctly. Even the semblance of life in the tree
or the flower stirs in ns a rudimentary affection.
Towards the brute creatures love becomes real
and even passionate, just in proportion as we
trace in them any likeness of human personality.
The prisoner in his solitary confinement has often
discovered that likeness, and welcomed it with
affection, in creatures which to the ordinary man
seem uninteresting or repulsive. But Love in
its true and proper development belongs only to
personal relation. It is a witness, stronger even
than the sense of duty, and incapable of being
either silenced or misunderstood, that man's life
cannot be self-sufficing and self-contained, but
needs some contact with personality without. 3
(b.) Then, in the next place, if we inquire to
what element in personality Love attaches itself,
we must answer (although at first sight the
answer may seem strange), that ultimately it
can attach itself only to a moral nature. In-
tellect as intellect, or power as power, may be
3 It is here that the Stoic avrapKua (with its modern
ascetic counterparts) so utterly breaks down. So far as it
indicates conquest over appetite, that is, rises above the
world of things, it is noble. So far as it crushes affection,
that is, dissociates man from the world of persons, it is
inhuman. By what monstrous forms of Nemesis the
exclusion of natural affection avenges itself, we know too
well.
278 THE THEOLOGY OF THE AFFECTIONS.
admired or feared, but can never be loved.
Beauty has, indeed, a wonderful power to kindle
Love — a power half-sensuous and even half-
physical — which (if modern naturalists may be
trusted) must be believed to have its counterpart
in the brute creation. But Love, although it may
be first kindled by the sense of Beauty, can never
content itself with this alone. If it is to endure,
it always connects that beauty, in fancy or in
reality, with some mental and spiritual qualities.
It fastens on what we call the " higher beauty
of expression " (that is), it worships an ideal
beauty of soul, shining through the visible
beauty of the face. And whenever Love passes
from a merely passionate form into a settled
principle, which is to endure and to rule in life,
its attachment to the moral element in man be-
comes more distinctly marked. Every one
knows, and smiles to see, how the most instinc-
tive of all affections — the affection of a mother
— is never satisfied with its merely instinctive
character, but insists on defending itself by the
belief that her children are clever, beautiful, and
good. It is a favourite theme of satire to note
how the most passionate of all affections — the
affection of a lover — invariably clothes the object
of his idolatry with an ideal vesture of purity
and goodness.
THE THEOLOGY OF THE AFFECTIONS. 279
The instinct, however men may smile at its
direction, is still in itself a true instinct. The
love, which is to stand the wear and tear of life,
must have some moral basis, in the lover and the
loved. "Whatever mental attitude it assumes —
whether of inferiority towards a father, a teacher,
or a leader ; or of equality towards a friend, a
brother, or a wife; or of superiority towards a
child, a disciple, or a subject — still in every case
it must have, or seem to have, such qualities on
both sides, as Truth, Honesty, Purity, Loyalty.
Else it cannot last. The power to love, as it re-
quires a moral nature in him who feels it, so
also implies a moral nature in the object towards
which it is directed. 4 Unless it be sustained by
some higher influence, the conviction of utter
baseness, falsehood, selfishness, in that object
will probably destroy it utterly, even in its
most natural forms, exchanging* it, either for the
blank of mere indifference, or for the reaction
of indignant hatred.
III. In these two points it will be observed
4 This truth is embodied in that idea which Cicero repre-
sents in a well-known passage (De Off. I. 5). " Formam
quidem ipsam, et tanquam faciem, honesti vides ; quae si
oculis cerneretur, mirabiles amores (ut ait Plato) ex-
citaret sui." For this passage at once recognises the
moral basis of Love, and the necessity of personality, (here
a visible personality,) in its object.
280 THE THEOLOGY OF THE AFFECTIONS.
that the action of the Affection is exactly similar
to the action of the Conscience. So far the sense of
Love follow s precisely the same line as the sense
of Duty. But in the third characteristic of the
action of Moral Sense — the sense of necessary
ties or relations between itself and its object —
the principle of Love agrees with, but certainly
goes far beyond, the principle of duty.
For Love implies that sign of likeness of
nature and character, which we call Sympathy.
Ultimately, I suppose that love cannot endure
without some actual reciprocity. The capacity
of love, in the normal growth of the soul in
childhood, is first called out and developed by
the experience of love. " We love him, because
he first loved us," is the natural expression of
the experience of children in relation to their
father. Even when the capacity has been de-
veloped into energy, though it may last long
without return, and may endure to the end with-
out adequate return, it is (to say the least)
doubtful, whether any love (unless it be sustained
by some higher principle), can say to the end,
" I will very willingly spend and be spent for
you, although the more abundantly I love you,
the less I be loved." But, at any rate, it
needs sympathy, — that is such likeness of
souls as may enable each to appreciate and un-
THE THEOLOGY OF THE AFFECTIONS. 28l
derstand the other. Where no such sympathy
is, love cannot last. After vain and often pathe-
tic attempts to imagine sympathy, it will sink
into despairing' indifference, or perhaps turn into
contempt and hatred. The slightest sign of
returning sympathy may induce it to forgive
seventy times seven times. But there is a limit;
and that limit may undoubtedly be reached.
In this respect love seems unlike truth and
righteousness, which, although in their action
they may be partly dependent on reciprocity,
yet do not seem to require the existence of mutual
sympathy.
Now this need of sympathy in Love has a
most important significance. It implies that
Love is a witness to some unity of nature,
between him who loves and him who is loved.
This connexion of Love with such unity is most
plainly shown in the dependence of all forms of
natural affection on what we call significantly
the " natural ties." The effect of these ties is
often actually visible in that form of sympathy
which we call likeness of family or national cha-
racter. But in any case the mere fact that men are
allied — in family by blood, in nations by com-
munity, partly of race, partly of law^s and rights,
in all mankind by "the touch of nature which
makes the whole world kin" — as it secures
282 THE THEOLOGY OF THE AFFECTIONS.
unity of nature, so is acknowledged to be a
natural ground of love. To ignore it is said to
be " unnatural >} and " inhuman 3> — is branded
(that is) as a disobedience to a Law of Humanity
as profoundly natural as the right of freedom
and the sense of duty themselves. But the
same connexion is shown in a different way in
that other great class of ties, which we form for
ourselves, and yet having formed, cannot at our
mere will break. The tie of friendship, sometimes
closer than brotherhood ; the tie of voluntary
association, social, political, religious ; the tie,
above all, of love, consecrated in marriage,
voluntary in its origin, yet superseding all
national ties — these also imply a true likeness of
nature (not perhaps usually the simple likeness
of unison, but the subtler likeness of harmony)
shown by the pursuit of common objects, the
belief in common truths, the love of common
principles.
Love, therefore, implies not only necessary re-
lations to one another in actual life, but a certain
unity of Nature. In this witness it undoubtedly
goes far beyond the sense of duty. For duty
may exist without sympathy. It involves a
sense rather of likeness than unity of nature.
Love not only bears witness to this unity, but
makes such witness a primary, even an absorb-
THE THEOLOGY OF THE AFFECTIONS. 283
ing, idea. Duty, iirst recognises our own
individuality, and our own freedom, rights, and
powers ; and then proceeds to ask, " What ought
I to do with them ? What do I owe to others ? "
Thus the sense of Righteousness and Truth is the
guard of man's proper individuality, in his rela-
tions to his fellow-men. On the other hand,
the natural impulse of Love is to forget, to sink
and (in the true sense of the word) to " deny "
self. 3 It asks, not " What ought I to do, or
what must I do?" but "What may I do for
others ? " In proportion as any consciousness
of self is present to the soul, even in craving
return of affection, Shakespeare has shown us in
his "King Lear/' how the bloom of love is
faded, and its glow is chilled. Love, therefore,
is the witness of unity against excessive indi-
viduality. It is not a little instructive that
Plato's celebrated definition of Righteousness is
the ra eavrov Trpdrren/ — the doing by each
man of the part which he sees to be his own,
in the confidence that all others will do the like
5 It is singularly unfortunate that the word " self-
denial, which our Lord makes the test of discipleship
(Matt. xvi. 24), should have been, in common parlance,
lowered from the idea of self-sacrifice to the idea of mere
self-discipline and self-control. Like all errors of phrase,
it has avenged itself by bringing in error of idea as to the
leading principle of Christian life.
234 THE THEOLOGY OF THE AFFECTIONS.
towards him ; 6 St. Paul's definition of Love is
that it ov fyrel ra eavrfjs — " seeks not her own
things/' and " looks "(as it is elsewhere ex-
pressed) in every man "upon the things of
others." Righteousness bids te each man bear
his own burden;" Love adds, "Bear ye one
another's burdens/' for another's burden is really
your own. 7 The temptation of the merely
righteous man is to hard self-concentration ; the
temptation of Love is to an officiousness in doing
good, which may even sap responsibility and
sacrifice the true individuality of the person loved.
We talk of the ties of Duty and the ties of Love.
But they are of a different kind. Duty is as a
golden cincture, keeping many separate units in
mutual contact, and so in mutual action. The
ties of Love are like the net-work of a living
organism, by which one single life throbs through
many members.
This witness to unity is the true signifi-
cance of the great principle of Love in man. It
is well called " the bond of perfectness." No
Society can well live without it, If a family is
merely kept together by the tie of common
interest, or even of mutual duty, its common
6 See Plat. Pep. iv. p. 433 : — rh ra avrov TrpaTTeiv Kal jxtj
xoXvirpo.yiJ.ove'iv hiKaioavvt] iffri.
7 See 1 Cor. xiii. 5; Phil. ii. 4; Gal. vi. 2. 5.
THE THEOLOGY OF THE AFFECTIONS. 285
life wants warmth and beauty, and eventually
is likely to be broken up under any severe
pressure. If a nation loses the glow of patriot-
ism and the inspiration of loyalty, history tells
us how its tone is coarsened and degraded, and
the first seeds of its decay are sown. If our
action towards human kind is guided only by
the recognition of mutual advantage, which is
the soul of Commerce, and the cold sense of
duty between man and man, we know too well
how little what we rightly call " humanity "
can stand against selfishness and passion. A
Power, which is so integral and essential a
factor in the history of the world, must surely
have a profound significance in all that concerns
the highest life of man.
IV. What is that significance, when in
thought we pass, from the world of self and the
world of Humanity, to the consideration of the
Higher Power, which is above both ?
To answer this question, we must follow in
great degree the same line of thought, which
was our guide in the consideration of the Moral
Sense of Righteousness. We must dwell, first,
on the origin, the scope, and the basis of the
abstract principle of Love in itself; and, next,
on the process of its education in its concrete
forms.
2S6 THE THEOLOGY OF THE AFFECTIONS.
(a.) What shall we say of its origin? The
power to love is one of the highest attributes of
man. In harmony with the sense of Right, and
clothing the firm skeleton of Duty with living
flesh and blood, it is perhaps the best means of
softening, purifying, ennobling the moral nature
of man. Its enthusiasm is often the surest
safeguard against the debasing temptation of
appetite, and the hardening influence of selfish-
ness and pride. Even for the perfection of the
individual nature, what can be an adequate
substitute for the spirit of love ? But, besides
this, we recognise the energy of love in its
various forms as probably the deepest and
strongest of all the influences, which actually
rule the world as a whole. We observe that the
whole network of physical relationship and of
social polity subserves it, and is held to fail in
its object, unless it supplies an organization
through which the currents of love may flow.
Love, therefore, is a high spiritual law in the
individual nature and in the society of human-
kind. Whence came it ? The Supreme Creative
Power must be the source of it, as of every
power in the world. Of it, therefore, as of
Conscience, we ask, " Is it possible for us to
imagine this high spiritual capacity of love
developed out of physical force or mere animal
THE THEOLOGY OF THE AFFECTIONS. 287
life ?" Both these powers are, no doubt, pressed
into its service; both may supply its lower
elements ; both may at times, like other servants,
rebel against their true master, and either over-
bear his right authority by brute force, or travestie
themselves under his likeness. But the power
of love is itself a spiritual and moral power.
The mind revolts against the idea of tracing it
to a physical parentage, as monstrous and in-
credible in theory, as destitute of all evidence in
practice. Yet, if this be so, what must the
Supreme Power be ? The answer must be the
answer of the text, " God is Love f and the
human love in all its varieties is but the shadow
of the Divine. Yet in that answer is not the
whole of a true Theology involved ? If we once
give it, then we know God as a true Divine
Person— as perfect in the two great Moral
Attributes of Righteousness and Love — as im-
planting those moral powers in -us, in order to
impress on our nature the image of Himself.
(6.) But let us pass from the source of Love
in man to the scope of its exercise. What shall
we say here ? We must say, as we said of the
Conscience, that it cannot be satisfied, either in
the little world within, or in the world of men ;
and that as Love, like Du ty, is one of the highest
faculties of our naturej it would be strange
288 THE THEOLOGY OF THE AFFECTIONS.
indeed, if it had no scope in our relation to the
Supreme Power. But we may (I think) urge
both these considerations here with even greater
force. Love, even less than Duty, can find full
scope, if it ignore God.
For, first, it is clear that far less than duty has
it any reference to the little world within. The
phrase, " the love of self," can hardly be under-
stood in the strict literality, in which we can
speak of duty to self, self-respect, and the like.
To be absorbed in the thought of self — to gaze
with passionate enthusiasm on our own beauty,
physical or moral, to delight ourselves in our
own intellect or character, to be devoted to our
own self-culture and our own happiness — is
rightly held to be akin rather to vice than to
virtue. It is a madness and an inhumanity, in
which (as the old fable of Narcissus teaches) the
soul will pine by a moral atrophy and die. Love
by its very nature looks without : if it be intro-
spective, it is diseased.
Then, again, if we look to the world of
humanity, it is an acknowledged truth — to
which both the individual consciousness of every
full-grown life, and the collective verdict of
human literature bear witness — that man's
capacities of love are at once educated by human
relationships, and unsatisfied by them. For Love
THE THEOLOGY OF THE AFFECTIONS. 289
undoubtedly needs for its continued life, the con-
viction of the beauty and goodness of the object
on whom it rests, and of the existence of some
reciprocity of love in him. Now, so far as it
assumes the attitudes of superiority and equality,
it may possibly find on earth the scope it needs,
although even in these it is constantly baffled,
wounded, and disappointed, by the proof of the
defects, and by the experience of the ingratitude,
of its objects. But it has its attitude of inferi-
ority, on which such disappointment especially
throws it back. Its deepest consciousness, by
which, indeed, it is properly and naturally
educated in the first instance, is that of loyalty
and worship of a superior being. Can it here
find full scope of exercise, in relation either to
the individual or to the society of men ? Even
less (I repeat) than duty. Personal affection has
its idolatries ; but, with a shock affecting our
whole moral being, it awakes to find that no
human being is wise enough, good enough,
loving enough, to deserve unqualified devotion
of love ; and that even if such a being existed,
yet the imperfect mutual knowledge of man
and man, which never penetrates to the inmost
depths of being, would prevent us from being
able fully to recognise, and therefore adequately
to love him. Men (I know), offer us, as a sub-
u
290 THE THEOLOGY OF THE AFFECTIONS.
stitute for the acknowledged imperfection of
personal affection,, loyalty to a family, a sove-
reign, a nation, or enthusiasm for humanity at
large ; but all these equally fail. Here, as in the
last Lecture, we must remark that the sum of
finite affections will not make a true infinity.
The spiritual defects, which forbid absolute devo-
tion to each individual, are not obliterated, but
intensified by aggregation; the unity between
the individual and society is less perfect than
between man and man, and, in consequence, the
extension of the area of affection simply dilutes
its power ; the devotion to the various societies
to which man belongs — the family, the nation,
and the race— are constantly liable to a conflict,
in which it is hard, if not impossible, to decide
between the intensity of the narrower, and the
grandeur of the wider unity. But besides this
we must add — what concerns Love in virtue of
the law of needful reciprocity, — that the want
of an adequate return of love from society itself is
fatal to its claims on our allegiance. The igno-
rance in society of its true benefactors is pro-
verbial ; the capricious fickleness and perversion
of popular gratitude have been felt by all who
have, sought to serve their fellows; tardy re-
pentance, paying to a man's senseless body or to
his memory the tribute which it denied to the
THE THEOLOGY OF THE AFFECTIONS. 291
living man, is the favourite theme of satire.
Duty may stand up against this. But although
some transcendental philosophers hold it essential
to an enthusiasm for Humanity that it should
equally endure, it is at least doubtful, whether
in the absence of all reciprocity love can
remain for ever, unless through men it looks to
God, and for the sake of the Father loves His
children.
For all these reasons we urge that no enthu-
siasm for humanity can have a right to " all the
mind, and all the soul, and all the strength."
There is much that we cannot render to the
Csesar, whether of individual royalty, or of col-
lective humanity. In every soul, which realizes
its own individuality, there must be still a vast
unoccupied residuum of the capacity of Love.
Men in all ages, as all religions and many of
the noblest philosophies show, have believed
that it belonged of right to the Supreme Power,
and that (as St. Augustine long ago expressed
it) u God had made the heart for Himself, and
therefore it was unsatisfied till it found Him."
Have they been wrong ? They looked to the
world of things, and traced on it the lines of
foreordained usefulness and beauty, obscured
indeed, but certainly not obliterated, by the
mystery of evil. In their own action they
u 2
292 THE THEOLOGY OF THE AFFECTIONS.
knew that to produce these things for others,
was the first instinct of Beneficence, and the
highest delight of Love. Such action thev
found to be one of the most effective ways of
being fellow-workers with the Supreme Power,
ruling the world. When they looked at the
works of Nature, then of the lower creatures they
believed, and of the race of men they knew, that
all was ordered to minister to happiness ; they
saw that, if only man's own sin could but be
rooted out, this world would be even now a
Paradise; they readily believed what Religion
taught again and again, that all the blight which
rests on it now is simply the poisonous miasma of
sin. There went up from the souls of men, in-
voluntarily and perpetually, a Hymn, not only of
wonder and admiration, but of thanksgiving and
praise. Surely it would need much to make us
believe that it went up to the deaf ear of
Physical Force or Impersonal Law. This un-
ceasing homage of Love, even in regard to the
world of Nature, is surely witness to a living God.
But if this be questioned in relation to that
world (chiefly by those who dwell on exceptional
evil, till they allow it to obscure the normal
good), what shall we say of the world of persons ?
In this, as I have said, the soul has always felt
itself at once stimulated and unsatisfied. Look-
THE THEOLOGY OF THE AFFECTIONS. 293
ing through, all human relationship s, it fixes on
Fatherhood as the one primeval and imperish-
able relation of superiority, implying Wisdom,
Power, Protecting Love. From the finite and
imperfect fatherhood of the world, it ascends to
" Our Father whicli is in Heaven," as a truer
and more ultimate title of the Supreme Power,
than even the Universal Creator, King, and
Judge. There and there only it finds the rest
which it needs, for the understanding in
thought, for the conscience in allegiance, for
the heart in love. 8
8 Hooker's treatment of the subject is singularly beau-
tiful and profound. In the Ecc. Pol., Book I. chap. v. he
argues that the perfection of man is his chief good ; that
all things which conduce to it are secondarily good for us ;
but that, since all perfection is but a shadow of the Divine
perfection, " all are said to seek the highest, and to covet
more or less the participation of God," which he explains
to be likeness to God, in " continuance/' in " constancy
and excellency of operation," in " the knowledge of Truth,"
and the "exercise of virtue," — that is, of energy. In
chap. xi. he goes on to argue that we desire or love good
things in proportion to their goodness. But " Nothing
may be infinitely desired but that good which is indeed
infinite. No good is infinite but God, therefore is He our
felicity and bliss. Moreover, desire tendeth to union with
that which it desireth. If, then, in Him we be blessed, it
is by force of participation and conjunction with Him.
Again, it is not the possession of any good thing that can
make them happy that possess it, unless they enjoy the
thing wherewith they are possessed. Then are we happy
294 THE THEOLOGY OF THE AEFECTIOHS.
(c.) But let us next pass, as before, from the
consideration of the origin and scope of Love, to
consider the ground of its sacredness, through
which it is different in kind from an appetite or
passion, and has, like Conscience, an authority
as well as a power. Here also, as before, we
shall have to pass from the answer of the
Intuitionist or Utilitarian to an answer which
rests on God. With the one we shall hold that
Love is a supreme law of our nature ; with the
other that its working is a tendency essential
to the supreme good of Humanity. But we
shall add that we cannot understand such a law
without a Personal Creator to write it on the
heart, or such a tendency without a Moral
Governor. In all this we have but mutatis
mutandis to retrace the ground which we have
already trodden in the previous lecture.
V. But if we ask, " What is the true basis of
Love/'' in the sense of asking, "What is its
significance as to our nature and being?" —
then we shall find out what is its peculiar func-
tion in the witness to God.
(a.) Its existence in the soul shows that the
individual nature is not self-centred and self-
thorefore, when wo fully enjoy God, as an object wherein
the powers of our souls arc satisfied even with everlasting
delight."
THE THEOLOGY OP THE AFFECTIONS. 295
sufficing — that it must have some spiritual
unity with another nature like its own. Hence,,
first, the existence of love to man implies*what
we call " a common humanity," in spite of all
individual peculiarities, and all the local and
national peculiarities, which outward circum-
stances and past history have impressed on 'men.
The intensity of love varies with the closeness
of the unity between man and man, either by
blood or by sympathy. We may love all men ;
but to love all equally is unnatural and impos-
sible. There are " kindred souls," whether by
natural kinship or the kinship of harmony of
character, in whom the common humanity is
most vividly realized, and therefore love most
vividly felt. "Whence comes that common
humanity ? At first sight it may seem reasonable
to reply that it comes from a common human
parentage, developing its effects through that
series of natural ties, of the power of which we
have experience every day in hereditary pecu-
liarities, in family likeness, in national character.
But this common parentage, however true his-
torically, does not account for the whole of the
facts. For in each man there is also an individu-
ality of character, in respect of which he is more
or less than his parentage, and which, unsatisfied
with natural bonds of unity, shows itself (as I
296 THE THEOLOGY OF THE AFFECTIONS.
have said) as creative of a new unity, by the
origination of that other series of voluntary ties,
which co-exist with and at times supersede the
other. In virtue of this, each soul is inde-
pendent of human parentage, and is (so to speak)
in direct connexion with the source of spiritual
being. 9 The unity, therefore, which exists
between all these distinctly individual natures is
something more than the mere existence of a
common human parentage would account for.
Whence (again we ask) can it come?
There can be but one answer — that, both in
the origin of the race, and in the birth of each
individual soul, there is impressed upon human
9 The co-existence of these two elements of common
nature, and distinct individuality, is the ground of the old
controversy of Traducianism and Creatianism (of which a
brief sketch will be found in Liddon's " Elements of Re-
ligion/' Lecture III.). It applies certainly to man's nature
as a whole, for it is impressed on the body as well as the
soul. No one who has studied human nature, in the whole
widtli of society or in the narrow limits of family life, can
possibly be either a mere Traducianist or a mere Crea-
tianist. Just as under the Darwinian theory, no one
doubts the transmission of characteristic properties, and
yet no account (except the belief in a Creative Will) can
be given of the first individual variations, from which the
differentiation of species starts ; so in human nature,
especially in the spiritual nature of man, there is a co-ex-
istence of unity and individuality, which nothing but tLo
same belief can account for.
THE THEOLOGY OF THE AFFECTIONS. 297
nature one eternal type by the hand of Him who
made it ; and (as we have already said) that type,
being of a moral and spiritual nature, can be im-
pressed only by a moral and spiritual Being.
Thus the unity between man and man, which
human love implies, must have its source in the
Creative Will of God. The knowledge of it,
therefore, leads us up to a Moral Creator of
Humanity. Even in this witness it carries by
implication the inference of a likeness between
Him and us.
(b.) But we have already urged that, over and
above the love of man to man, there is a love of
man to God, not only possible to man, but
universal in man ; and in this alone the
soul can sink the individuality, which always
rightly limits the capacity of love to men. What
can this love indicate except a real unity of nature
between God and man ? The type, which we have
already concluded to be impressed on all human
creatures, alike in the origin of the race, and the
birth of the individual soul, must, we now see,
have a likeness to the Creator Himself, must be
" the image of God." In one -of the greatest
Epistles of St. Paul, 1 we are taught that the
1 See Eplies. v. 22 — vi. 9. The characteristic of the
Epistle is its tendency to deal with human nature as a
whole, as regenerate in Christ, and hence to dwell on the
298 THE THEOLOGY OF THE AFFECTIONS.
three great relationships of human society —
father and child, hushand and wife, master and
servant — are sacred, as shadows of the relations
of God to man in the Lord Jesus Christ. No
such completeness of view can be gained by
mere Natural Theology ; but the very witness of
love to God leads up at least to some conception
of a true Fatherhood of God, under which the
brotherhood of all men is realized, and which at
the same time has a close relation to each indi-
vidual life, guarding its freedom and sacredness.
It is in this that the peculiar force of the
Theology of Love consists. It agrees with the
Theology of Conscience in recognising in the
Supreme Power a true Personal God, a Moral
Creator, a Moral Governor. So far the two
witnesses simply coincide. But, while Con-
science tells of man's individuality before God,
Love witnesses to a true unity of nature and a
communion with God, on which we may rest
" all our heart and all our mind, all our soul and
all our strength/'' That witness is not lost in
the conception of God's greatness and our own
littleness; it is not destroyed, though it is
obscured, even by the sense of sin and judg-
relations which underlie society as natural, and to bring
out the doctrine of that society supernatural, which we
call the Catholic Church of Christ.
THE THEOLOGY OF THE AFFECTIONS. 299
ment. On the contrary, in the communion of
the soul with God, Love is the element which
grows and gradually supersedes the elements of
simple wonder and fear ; just as in the conception
of God we accept as the ultimate truth, not
" God is Power," " God is Light," " God is
Righteousness" — although all these be true —
but « God is Love."
VI. Yet I must add that there is one other
point, in which this witness of the affections has
a peculiar beauty and power of its own in such a
world as this. We have had to speak again
and again of the awful mystery of the existence
of evil — physical suffering, intellectual blind-
ness, moral sin — as the one great disturbing
influence along all the lines of conviction which
lead up to God. We cannot deny that it crosses
us here also. We ask in wonder, " How can
God, who is Love, create beings, who can be so
wretched, blind, sinful, that it were better for
them had they never been born?" To that
question, as to the parallel question of the Con-
science, no full and adequate answer can, from
the nature of the case, be given. Nor, again,
is it doubtful that, just in proportion to the
existence of moral evil in the soul, the love of
God is exchanged for a fear, "hiding itself
among the trees of the garden j" and, just in
300 THE THEOLOGY OF THE AFFECTIONS.
proportion to the actual power of moraj evil to
desolate the world, the belief in God's Love, as
well as His Righteousness, is shaken. Sin
therefore, weakens this moral witness, as it
weakens the other moral witness, to God. Were
it not so, their combined testimony would be
absolutely irresistible.
But still it is through this conception of
Love that we have the brightest gleam of light
from Natural Theology to penetrate the darkness
of sin. For, in the first place, love being the
measure of unity with God and likeness to Him,
we feel that, so long as we have any love in us, our
nature cannot be quite estranged from Him or
utterly degraded. There is the Divine Image in
us, showing itself both in love to man and in love
to Him : we cannot but hope that it will con-
quer all that obscures it and fights against it.
But more than this. In the conception of God's
Love there is an undying hope. For love, as we
know, even in ourselves, contains, in relation to
those who sin against us, the quality of Mercy ;
and we hold that this quality belongs necessarily
to superior being.
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God Himself.
Accordingly, we know that towards erring and
THE THEOLOGY OF THE AFFECTIONS. 301
sinful children an earthly father shows mercy,
almost as a thing of course, carries not out the
strict law of Righteousness against them, but
delights to wipe away their tears of penitence, and
to swallow up in the gladness of reconciliation all
the suffering of the past. If God be Love, we
have hope that He will be better than an earthly
father to His prodigal sons, that thus the sin of
man will be pardoned, and all the cloud of evil
vanish away. We hope this : without Revelation
I dare not say that we know it. 2 For even the
Love of God cannot destroy the responsibility
of man. 3 Sin must be atoned for ; there must
be repentance, if there is to be pardon. Yet
every day in this life we seem to see souls
utterly hardened and reprobate, dead to all
sorrow for sin, and all desire of righteousness.
If there is always pardon to the penitent, can
there be always penitence for the sinner ?
2 On this solemn subject, see Butler's weighty and un-
answerable remarks in the " Analogy," part ii. chap. v.
3 ISTote the profound teaching of our Lord in John xii.
47, 48, in which His will for salvation and the inevitable
responsibility of man are contrasted. " If any man hear
My words, and believe not, I judge him not : for I came not
to judge the world, but to save the world. He that re-
jecteth Me, and receiveth not My words, hath one that
judgeth him : the word that I have spoken, the same shall
judge him in the last day."
302 THE THEOLOGY OF THE AFFECTIONS.
We cannot be sure, that, beyond a certain
point, human souls may not be utterly and
eternally estranged from God. But we have
hope — a hope that has expressed itself in every
religion — and that hope comes not from the
Reason and the Conscience, but from the
Affections. Its very existence is a signal proof
of the truth, that " he who loveth not, knoweth
not God."
VII. I have spoken hitherto mainly of the
principle of Love in the abstract, corresponding
to what we call the Syrderesis in the Moral Sense
of Righteousness. But it is far more difficult
here to distinguish the abstract principle from
the concrete application of it. For since the
sense of Righteousness bids us first realize our
own individuality and then the duties, which,
in virtue of that individual responsibility, we
owe to others, it is possible to consider the
principle of Duty in its abstract purity and
grandeur, as we stand face to face with it in the
great question, " For what purpose am I what
I am?" Love, on the other hand, being
essentially relative and self- forgetful, it is all
but impossible to realize it, except in its con-
crete forms, in close and necessary connexion
with the external objects to which it tends.
The distinction, therefore, which in the examina-
THE THEOLOGY OF THE AFFECTIONS. 303
tion of Conscience was natural and necessary, is
somewhat artificial here.
But still there must here also be a similar
consideration of the need of education of the
principle of Love, and the inferences to be drawn
therefrom.
That the capacity of Love, like the capacity
of Righteousness, needs to be educated, and that
provision is made for its education by the ex-
istence of human society and natural relation-
ships, is too obvious to need proof or enforce-
ment. The only difference is that in the educa-
tion of Love the lower or coercive element of
law has no place, and that the spiritual element
is not so much the power of direct teaching, as
the magic of example and personal influence.
The growth of Love must necessarily be free.
It is stimulated by the power of example, be-
getting an inevitable reciprocity — with a power
stronger here than even in respect of Duty; for it
is an all-sufficient ground for loving men that
"they first love us." It grows with singular
rapidity and certainty by its own action ; for it
is well known that we love most those for whom
we have had the opportunity of doing most,
fully understanding that ff it is blessed to give
rather than to receive." It may be added that
the culture of the Imagination and of its delight
304 THE THEOLOGY OF THE AFFECTIONS.
in the beauty, which we rightly call " loveli-
ness/'' plays a more important part in the educa-
tion of Love than in the education of Duty. But
these differences do not touch the main point of
similarity — that the affections, like the Con-
science, need to be educated, and are in part
educated by man.
From this, therefore, exactly as before, we go
on to two inferences, — First, that this education
by man, being a law of human life, is a part of
the moral government of God, and that, there-
fore, of His nature Love as well as Righteous-
ness is a chief attribute. Next, that there are
depths in the capacity of Love, which no human
power, either of the individual or of society, can
reach, or, indeed, ought to reach. For these
there is an educating power which must reach
them from on high.
Not in this case the power of Law. In the
sense of Law — that is, of God's Will enforcing
and avenging itself — lies the source of fear,
whether it be the lower fear of punishment, or the
higher fear which is akin to reverence. "Per-
fect love casts out fear ;" it cannot, therefore,
be fostered by Law. We fall back entirely on
the voice of the Spirit in the soul. As He is
the awful Spirit of Righteousness, so is He also
the sweet Spirit of Love. As by the presence
THE THEOLOGY OF THE AFFECTIONS. 303
of a Divine Righteousness, in rebuke and judg-
ment, He trains the Conscience, so also by the
sense of a Divine Love, in its beneficence, its
sympathy, its mercy, He trains the capacity of
Love.
It may indeed be noted that, in accordance
with that less introspective and more expansive
character of love, on which we have already
dwelt, the Voice of God in the soul seems here,
more than in its appeal to the conscience,
to make use of impressions from the outer
world. Thus it tells marvellously on the soul
through the imagination by the sense of the
beauty of Nature. In that relation, even a
Christian poet calls it " Nature's Voice,'"' whether
he hears it in the bright freshness of the morn-
ing, or the calmer peacefulness of the evening,
in the silence of the quiet valley or the grandeur
of the mountain storm. But it is really a voice
within the soul; and the most prosaic mind knows
well how at times it melts the heart to tender-
ness, and tills the eyes with the tears of an
adoring love. It is the voice of a true Personal
Being; for none other can call out a real
answer of love. Nor can we doubt that the
very atmosphere of human affection — in itself,
as we have already seen, a powerful educating
influence — suggests the existence behind and
306 THE THEOLOGY Ob 1 THE AFFECTIONS.
through it of a higher love of the God who
ordained it as one of the great ruling forces of
humanity. What Keble again says of the
sense of human sympathy in the hour of re-
pentance — " They love us : will not God for-
give?" — is true of all the various forms of
human affection. As by it we first learn to
conceive of the love of God, so through it we
afterwards learn to feel that higher love ; for in
it the voice of the Divine Spirit of Love speaks
to us through human voices.
But yet that Voice, perhaps oftener still,
comes home to the soul directly. It breathes
first the conviction of God's goodness and
especially His mercy; it suggests next the
yearning of the soul for Him and for His like-
ness ; it calls out lastly the answering current of
a conscious love. By the testimony of indivi-
dual consciousness and of all human literature,
we know that this Voice, thus speaking directly,
is heard in the secrets of the soul, — generally the
more clearly in proportion to the greater sensi-
tiveness and purity of that soul itself. In the
education of the capacity of love, as in its origin,
its scope, and its basis, we know a present God.
VIII. Thus, it would seem, the Theology of
Love completes the harmony of the many
voices which testify of God.
THE THEOLOGY OF THE AFFECTIONS. 307
Closely parallel to the Theology of Conscience,
yet certainly coming* from an independent faculty
in the soul, it testifies by the convergent force
of coincidence to a Personal, a Moral, a Loving
God. Of the two great truths correlative to
each other — the spirituality of man, and the
Being of a true God, having communion with
man — we may hold that the sense of Righteous-
ness is the chief guardian of the one, the sense
of Love the chief witness to the other. But the
two truths must stand or fall together; and
the two lines of Moral Theology, perhaps in
different proportions, testify of both. Their
witness, after all, is more powerful than any
other ; for it comes home with a direct and
vivid force to the individual Conscience, stirring
it not only to know, but to do ; and it tells more
or less upon all, not needing research into the
past, or abstract reasoning on the first principles
of Being, but dealing with the present realities
and the present needs of life. Their witness is
more fruitful than any other ; for it discloses to
us in its measure and degree, not only that God
is, but what He is — unfolding to us the Moral
Attributes most clearly belonging to Personality,
and most intimately affecting our own life in rela-
tion to Him. Therefore it is that our Lord pro-
mises the blessing of" seeing God/' not to keen-
80S THE THEOLOGY OF THE AFFECTIONS.
ness or subtlety of intellect, but to the " purity
of heart/' which grows out of the "hunger
Lind thirst after righteousness."" Therefore it is
that, as the crowning perfection of Gospel teach-
ing, it is declared that " he that loveth not,
knoweth not God/' and that they who are
" rooted and grounded in love 3> shall " know
what passeth knowledge, and be filled with all
the fulness of God."
SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENT.
I._(«) SUMMARY OF THE GENERAL POINTS OF THE ARGU-
ME NT.
(b) THE RELATION OF BELIEF IN HUMAN PERSON-
ALITY TO BELIEF IN GOD.
( C ) TEE GREAT ANTITHESIS BETWEEN THEISM AND
PANTHEISM.
II —THE TWO GROUPS OF SPECULATIVE AND MORAL THEO-
LOGY: THEIR MUTUAL RELATIONS AND COMBINA-
TION.
I XI. THE ULTIMATE CONCLUSIONS —
(a) THE EXISTENCE OF A GOD.
(6) THE INDUCTION OF HIS (RELATIVE) INFINITY,
(c) THE CONCEPTION OF THE ABSOLUTE.
XV.-THE RELATION OF NATURAL THEOLOGY TO REVELATION.
CONCLUSION.
The brief outline of a great subject is now com-
pleted. It remains to sum up the leading con-
clusions, to which the course of the argument
has led.
310 SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENT.
I. (a.) We start 1 from an all-important fact,
which must in some way be accounted for — that
the belief in a Personal Godhead is all but uni-
versal over the field of humanity , both in space
and in time. With the one great exception of
Buddhism — which is itself unable really to main-
tain its Theoretic Nihilism, and which yet, in
virtue of that very Nihilism, is incompatible with
any activit}^ or progress of man — no belief which
excludes a Personal Deity is able to maintain
itself as a practical belief, fit for the wear and
tear of life ; and no belief in a Personal Deity
fails (after perhaps a brief halt in some theory of
Dualism) to assume, explicitly or implicitly, the
form of a belief in One Eternal God. The evi-
dences of our Natural Theology have, therefore,
to maintain a vantage-ground already our own
against assailant forces, rather than to win for
the faith in God a new position in human
thought and faith. 2 Their office, indeed, is to
1 See Lect. I.
2 In strict accordance with the laws of human nature,
Holy Scripture (1 Pet. iii. 15) directs us to be able to give
on inquiry " a reason for the hope which is " already " in
us," wrought out in the soul, not by abstract reasoning,
but by our own instinctive faith and by the teaching of men,
which God has ordained on all lines of knowledge to be the
two influences of actual education. The command applies
to the evidence both of Eeligion as such, and of Chris-
SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENT. 311
draw out, into explicit forms the principles im-
plicitly involved in the universal and instinctive
belief of mankind.
But what is the true character and province
of Natural Theology ? 8 In itself, when it pro-
ceeds beyond the bare demonstration of the
existence of a First Cause, it is, and from the
nature of the case we maintain that it must be,
an Inductive Science — proceeding (as all other
Inductive Sciences proceed) by observation,
generalization, verification, and resulting at last,
not in demonstration, but in moral certainty.
If it leads us to a Personal Being, then, although
our powers of observation are enlarged by sym-
pathy, yet all analogy shows us that, for any-
thing like adequate knowledge of Him from
Himself, some Self-Revelation is needed, com-
plementary to the searchings of Natural Theo-
logy, taking up its various lines and carrying
them on to the central Unity. To the knowledge
of Science, therefore, must be added the know-
ledge of Faith. It is important accordingly at
the outset to consider what is the force, and what
the limitation, of Natural Theology. Those who
believe in a Revelation, Supernatural but not
tianity itself. It shows us clearly the true function of
Evidence in relation to Faith.
3 See Lect. II.
312 SUMMAUY OF THE ARGUMENT.
Preternatural, will be prepared at once to esti-
mate that force, and to expect that limitation.
To these preliminary considerations we next
add 4 — what it is the special object of these
lectures to enforce — first, that there are various
lines of Natural Theology, corresponding to the
Intellect, to the Imagination, to the Conscience,
and to the Affections of man ; next, that no one
of these various lines can be considered alone, or
expected alone to bear the whole stress of proof :
thirdly, that, in virtue of the Law of Conver-
gence, so well known in the estimation both of
scientific evidence and of human testimony,
the aggregate result of these various lines of
Theology is infinitely greater than the mere sum
of their separate evidences; lastly, that, since
each has at once its points of agreement with
the others, and its peculiarity of some exclusive
witness, this confirmatory power of Convergence
applies, primarily, indeed, to the points in which
all agree, but secondarily also to the testimony
which each bears alone.
From these main considerations we proceed
to work out more in detail each of these lines of
thought, as defending the fortress of instinctive
Faith.
(Jj.) But before doing so, it is important to
4 See Lect. III.
SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENT. 313
notice what are the principles of that defence.
Everywhere the belief in God, and the conscious-
ness of all that makes a true Personality in man,
are in the closest connexion with each other. No
Theology is possible apart from the recognition
of a free will in man, guided by Reason, specula-
tive and practical, and in some mysterious way
harmonized with the Supreme Power. The con-
verse would probably be found to be true — that,
without belief in God, the believer in man's true
personality will find it all but hopeless to under-
stand how this needful harmony can be possible,
and so will hardly maintain his own conviction,
as a living and acting power. But with this we
are not at present concerned. The point, which
must be clearly represented to our mind, is this,
that we start in the search after God from the
conviction, so deeply engraven on the individual
consciousness and on the whole history and litera-
ture of the world, of a true personality in man.
With those who deny this we have no common
ground. But wherever it is acknowledged, we
believe that the evidence of Natural Theology is
fairly irresistible. On the premiss itself, we
appeal at once to the first principles of our inner
consciousness, and to the exigencies of the outer
life in which " we are treated as if we were
free." We have no fear that any imperious
314 SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENT.
demand for logical comprehensiveness of system,
or any impressions, however powerful, of
the Majesty of Law, will ever rob mankind
of it.
(<?.) When we have thus considered the prin-
ciples of our defence, it is well to glance, next,
at the character of the attack.
The great issue to be decided is between
Pantheism and Theism — that is, between the
conception of a pervading Soul of the Universe,
and the faith in a living Personal God. For a
pure Materialism is, I believe, as a real faith,
impossible, because it utterly fails to account
for all the spiritual phenomena of life. Nor is
it probable that what men call " Agnosticism,"
in respect to God — the denial of all possibility
of a true knowledge of Him, and the endeavour
to frame a system of life and thought without it
— will be much more than a theory of the
closet. It cannot meet even the intellectual
necessities, much less the moral and spiritual
necessities, of life. If there be a God, it is
an untenable position; if there be no God,
it must find something to supply His place :
and till it does, it must acknowledge itself
to be a mere pause and halting-place of
thought.
The one great enemy, then, against which
SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENT.
315
Religion has to hold its ground is Pantheism. 5
The various evidences of Natural Theology must
be ultimately marshalled with a view to its
attack, now pressed on with special vehemence
by the purely Physical Philosophy of the present
day, often fascinating the Intellect, and enlisting
in its cause the force of the Imagination.
II. Now, as we thus marshal them, we find
that they fall naturally into two chief groups—
the Intellectual (or Speculative) Theology of
the Reason and the Imagination, and the
Moral Theology of the Conscience and the
Affections. These two groups, while in the
component elements of each there is a close
similarity of main principle, hold towards each
other a relation chiefly of independence, differing
in the very principles of their method. It is, there-
fore, not unusual for men either to dwell wholly
on one or the other according to their tastes and
5 In this respect our position materially differs from that
of the great Evidence writers of the eighteenth century.
But it seems clear that the Deism, with which they had to
deal, was stimulated by not wholly dissimilar causes, viz.
by the great development of Physical Science, and by the
prevalence (in the school of Locke) of a mental and moral
philosophy of a kindred spirit, starting from sensation,
decrying abstract ideas, and impatient of mystery. Hence
there is much in these great writers, especially in Butler,
which may be applied mutatis mutandis to the a priori
infidelity of the present day.
316 SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENT.
sympathies, or to derive certain results from
one considered by itself, before proceeding to
investigate the other. Against this practice I
have ventured to protest, as, dividing what ought
not to be put asunder. It seems but reasonable
that these two groups of evidences should be
examined together, and their testimonies viewed
as converging towards a common truth. When
this is done, what is (so to speak) rudimentary
and imperfect in one is likely to be brought out
into definiteness and conclusiveness by the other.
Proceeding, as we have seen, by independent
processes, they partly coincide in certain common
results, while each goes on to bear a peculiar
testimony, to which that coincidence nevertheless
gives trustworthiness and strength. When
they are so examined, what is their verdict on
the great question at issue ?
We turn to the first group. By Reason
surveying the Universe in all its great provinces
of Being, we ascend along the line of ^Etiology
demonstratively to the existence, and inductively
to the nature, of the First Cause, and examine
by Teleology the evidences of Design. The
former line of thought c brings out at once the
great alternative, and places us face to face with
6 Sec Lcct. IV.
SUMMAUY OF THE ARGUMENT. 317
the conflict between Theism and Pantheism,
inclining, however, if will be recognised as
a true Cause, to the side of Theism. Still there
might be doubt. There is ultimate Mind. Is
it a Mind in the Universe, or a Mind over the
Universe ?
We turn to the second line of Reason, and to
the line of Imagination. 7 Their methods are
independent, and in some respects opposite to
each other. The understanding proceeds by
analysis, separating the whole into its parts by
gradual reasoning of Science, the Imagination by
synthesis, conceiving the whole as a whole in
one swift intuition. But their results distinctly
coincide, in recognising an independent creative
and sustaining Mind. The Understanding, both
in the Universe as a whole, and in the separate
kingdoms of Nature, traces the evidences of
Design, altered in form but unchanged in
essence by modern Science ; and the Imagina-
tion shows its power to discern Beauty, to
idealize and to re-create. Both by different
paths lead us not to a mere Anima Muudi, but
to a Living God, in whom they clearly recognise
Power, Wisdom, Glory, and may perhaps infer
Righteousness and Love.
7 See Lect. V. and VI.
318 SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENT.
To many minds the combined evidence of this
group has seemed decisive ; either as sufficient in
itself, or as a starting-point for an inquiry, not
into the Being, but into the Moral Nature of
God. Probably they are right in the abstract;
certainly they are right as to the effect produced
on the mind of humanity at large. But let
us suppose that, standing alone, the result of
these lines of Speculative Theology be questioned.
Let us grant that the speculations of pure
Science and the imaginations of merely specula-
tive Poetry have tended and still tend, now in one
direction, now in another. Sometimes their
deities are only Nature and Humanity ; some-
times behind both they recognise the form of a
Living God.
Then, if this be so, we turn to the other group
of witnesses. We examine the testimony of the
Conscience and the Affections. 8 The whole
aspect of the question is at once changed. There
is no question that, if they bear witness to any
object, that object must be a Personal and Moral
Being, having (so says Conscience) necessary re-
lations to us, and having (so Love declares) an
Unity of nature with us. Hence the one ques-
tion is, whether these faculties, acknowledged to
8 See Lect. VII. and VIII.
SUMMARY OF THE AllGUMENT. 319
be the highest and the most powerful faculties
of our nature, have any relation whatever to that
Supreme Power, of which Reason and Imagina-
tion tell us. To solve that question — allowing
on universal human testimony the existence of
the great principles of Conscience and Love —
we examine, first, their origin, their scope, and
their basis in general ; and, next, the process of
their education to the particular applications of
daily life. Everywhere we find that they do
lead up to the Supreme Power, and that, without
such an ultimate object, their whole character is
defective, if not unintelligible. This being so 3
we hold that this group of witnesses interferes
in the great strife, which the intellectual Theo-
logy but partially determines, with no indecisive
voice. Against the Pantheistic alternative, the
Moral Theology protests in the name of the in-
dividuality of man, of his sense of the eternal
difference between Right and "Wrong, of his
capacity of infinite Love. It must destroy
them, or they will destroy it. In its view all
other being vanishes, except the Being of God
and the being of our own soul. In fact, did we
listen to its witness alone, the conception of God
might be even too narrow and too limited in its
intense Personality, failing adequately to bring
out the all-pervading influence of His Providence
320 SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENT.
in the world of things, and of His Spirit in the
world of souls.
But let us take both groups of witness
together ; then the witness .of Natural Theology
grows upon us in all its depth and power.
Were it not for one great disturbing cause,
it would be fairly irresistible. But that dis-
turbing element undoubtedly exists in the great
Mystery of Evil — in the lesser forms of apparent
waste and failure, and of physical suffering,
seeming to obscure God's Wisdom — in the
greater and more terrible form of moral Evil,
seeming to discredit His Righteousness and
Love. It is, be it frankly acknowledged, a
mystery which in different degrees weakens
every line of Natural Theology ; yet it has
power, we unhesitatingly maintain, to destroy
none. Even allowing for its interference, we
still find their convergent force so strong that,
if we relied on it alone, we should not wonder
that the belief in a living Almighty and All
Righteous God should be in possession of all the
field of human thought, and express itself in all
the religions and languages, of the world.
IV. What is precisely its ultimate result ?
(a.) I believe, first, that it leads us to the
existence of a Personal God, with all the force of
moral certainty. By instinctive consciousness,
SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENT. 321
by the inferences of practical experience, by the
convergence of many lines of deliberate thought,
—by the process (that is) through which we
gain knowledge of any Being— the soul ascends
to Him, refusing either to turn aside to other
objects, or to stop contentedly half way.
{i.) Next if it be asked how far we know
what He is, the answer must be that every line of
Induction leads us to what we may call relative
Infinity, that is, to attributes transcending our
own power perfectly to conceive. The Theology
of the Intellect and Imagination invests Him
with attributes of Power, Wisdom, Glory, in
relation to which our advancing thought per-
petually enlarges our vision of their greatness,
and yet shows more distinctly how they stretch
immeasurably beyond. The soul breaks out into
the cry, « O the depth of the riches, both of the
wisdom, and the knowledge of God ! How un-
searchable are His judgments and His ways
past finding out I" So again the Moral
Theology brings out to us in God Righteous-
ness and Love— like our own, but indefinitely
transcending our own — by a knowledge which
increases with the perfection of our moral concep-
tions, with the consciousness of our own moral
needs, with the actual growth of our own moral
life. The result is, perhaps, not so much the
y
322 SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENT.
excitement of an adoring wonder, as the kindling
of a deep and reverent love, " thirsting for God,
yea! for the living God/' But, beyond these
conceptions of Infinity the mind in itself cannot
go. Infinity necessarily is to such investigation
what it is in Mathematical reasoning — the
result of the indefinite accumulation of finite
quantity, compared with which, nevertheless, no
finite quantity bears any appreciable proportion.
The conception of God, like the Love of God,
demands all the minds and all the souls of all
men, and having filled them to the measure of
their capacity, overflows infinitely beyond them
all. To suppose that they can grasp His
absolute Nature is a contradiction in terms.
(<?.) But, while Inductive reasoning can go
no further than this, we must add, thirdly, that
we find in each line of thought the notion of
the Absolute, as that which we must conceive
to be, though we cannot conceive how or what
it is in itself. Such in Speculative Theology is
the conception of a First Cause, itself uncaused,
which, while we may differ as to its nature,
and acknowledge that nature to be imperfectly
comprehensible, seems nevertheless to be a
necessity of thought. Such in Moral Theology
is the conception of an Eternal and unchange-
_able Righteousness, belonging to the First
SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENT. 323
Cause, so arguing a true Personality in Him,
and underlying the nature of all things, of
which it is impossible to conceive that it ever
was not, or can ever cease to be. These two
conceptions are not relative to us and to our
capacities, but absolute. They lie beyond the
induction of relative Infinity ; they supply to
the thought the goal towards which those In-
ductions are perpetually approaching. Barren
in their own absolute majesty, they are clothed
with vividness of beauty and life by these
inductions, till they glow, like the everlasting
hills under all the changes of light and shade.
The First Cause is invested with all the per-
fection of Wisdom and Glory, which we discover
on every side, and we believe that these At-
tributes rise . beyond our conception to an
Absolute Infinity. The Eternal Righteousness
is brought out to us by all the evidences of an
actual Moral Government of the world, which we
can discover, while it is acknowledged that they
are but indications of an absolute Moral Perfec-
tion which is far beyond our powers of discovery.
The Ideal Consciousness and the actual Induc-
tion meet together. The one gives us the un-
changeable Form, the other supplies the colour-
ing, which impresses that Form upon the mental
vision.
y 2
324 SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENT.
It is thus that Natural Theology ascends to-
wards the Infinite Being. The meeting-point
of the Absolute Conception, and the various lines
of Induction converging to it, lies behind the
veil. Nevertheless its existence is invariably
assumed. More or less vividly it is realized by
all forms of Theism, whether they do or do not
accept the belief in any special Revelation.
IV. It is with this acceptance and the grounds
of it that we have had to do. But yet we cannot
but remind ourselves, in conclusion — as in the
course of the argument we have reminded our-
selves from time to time — that we Christians,
while we thank God for this Natural Theology,
hold that in His wisdom it has not stood, nor
was it intended to stand, alone. Accordingly, we
protest in the strongest terms against the as-
sumption, too often made on both sides of this
great argument, of any true antithesis between
Natural and Revealed Religion. We hold that
Revelation, in the sense in which we use the
word, is natural — that is, we believe it to be a
part of the dispensation of God to man, on which,
as complementary to the searchings of Natural
Theology, the knowledge of God diffused through
the world actually rests. Over and above the
witness to God, through which He reveals Him-
self to every individual heart, we hold it as a
SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENT. 325
historical truth that He has, "in sundry
times and in divers manners/'' specially re-
vealed Himself to men, and through them
to the whole race, in a Revelation which
finds its ultimate perfection in the Lord Jesus
Christ.
In two ways we hold this Revelation to be
complementary to all those natural forms of the
knowledge of Him. First, in the strict sense of
completion, coming forth from behind the veil,
to meet all these converging lines of thought,
and to bind them in one perfect unity to the
Throne of God. Next, in the sense rather of
supplement, as giving us the only solution of
that great Mystery of Evil, which everywhere
(as we have said) weakens and obscures the light
shining along each line of Natural Theology,
and weighs like a terrible burden upon the souls
of men. To this twofold relation of Revelation
to Natural Theology we shall endeavour to direct
our thoughts hereafter. But meanwhile we must
remember, that this is the view of the knowledge
of God which Christianity maintains, and that,
because it does so maintain it, it is recognised as
the true strength of Theism, so that by it, and
by it alone, the main battle of Religion has to
be fought.
Such is the general outline of the argument.
326 SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENT.
However imperfectly it may have been worked
out, I believe that it is essentially true.
There are two principles universally recognised
in human life. The first is that every convic-
tion, which is to rule humanity, must appeal not
to one faculty of our nature, but to that nature
as a whole, in the harmony of all its various
faculties. The second is that every such con-
viction, speculative or practical, unless it rests on
absolute demonstration or absolute faith, is
wrought into the soul by many converging'
evidences, each possibly in itself inadequate, all
in their combination irresistible. I have simply
urged that these acknowledged principles
should be applied to the highest inquiry— the
inquiry after God.
The knowledge of Him, from whom our
complex nature proceeds, if it is really to come
home to us, must embrace understanding and
imagination, conscience and affections alike.
The knowledge of Him, who necessarily is
beyond our full comprehension, must be
reached by many lines of thought, each giving
but an imperfect witness, and all together rising
but to a moral certainty.
So embraced by all our faculties, so impressed
on us by the combined evidence of all, we believe
that it is ordained by Him to draw us towards the
SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENT. 327
shrine of His Presence. But from that shrine,
opened by His hand, we believe that there have
shone, in all ages, beams of His own Divine
Light, beyond our own power to discover : yet
even these veiled and imperfect still, till by the
coming of the Son of God the veil was rent in
twain, and the way into the Holiest place opened
to us for ever.
THE END.
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